


It's Not Really Devil May Cry Until Dante Gets Stabbed!

by gdiWes (Wes)



Series: Just Another Tuesday [1]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alchemy, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Gay Undertones, Gen, How Do I Tag, I tried to steer clear of spoilers but things from DMC 4 and before that are mentioned, Kidnapping, Original Character(s), Probably ooc, Tags May Change, Vergil is mentioned once or twice, devil arms are mildly sentient, i'm really sorry for that, small bit of self harm in chapter 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2020-05-19 18:38:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 70,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19362325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wes/pseuds/gdiWes
Summary: (Add. Tags: Author is a filthy shipper with no shame, sorry that that's the first extra tag even though there aren't any actual relationships other than friendships, but the undertones are there for my own enjoyment, 27 STAB WOUNDS is relevant, I also made weapon designs for every single weapon they have, I might make a blog just for the convenience of this fic, but we'll see, am I proud of this? yeah, do I think it's a good contribution to the fandom? kinda, do I regret it? not in the slightest, yet.)Clear’s an ordinary devil hunter, or, as ordinary as he can be in that profession. The catch? He’s got a cursed tattoo that helps him out. Though he may claim to be the best in the city, his over-confidence is challenged when he stumbles into the path of Dante Sparda, a half-Devil just trying to lead an honest life by killing other devils. And when Clear’s arms dealer Dimitri goes missing after creating a mysterious new weapon, it seems he’s got no choice but to partner up with Dante to save him. He just hopes Dante runs tabs as much as he asks for them.A.k.a. Dante accidentally adopts two kids and is a tired father, because these two areidiotsand attract trouble like magnets.





	1. Mission 1: Fresh Meat

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: I started a sideblog on tumblr exclusively for this fic!! I don't have much yet but please keep an eye on it! It has all the character art and weapons, find it here : https:// dmctuesdayblog . tumblr . com
> 
> Honestly I just Full Leaned into making emo phase 13 yr old me happy with the character, shippy 16 year old me happy with the subtext/canon ships, and current me happy with the weapons. Pretty much I just had fun writing this for no reason other than to practice and because I love making OCs lmaooo I did concept designs for all of the weapons which I’ll link here and then again as they come up. Dudes, I just wanna say: Follow your dreams because those wep concepts got me into art school so don’t let anyone tell you you can’t get into school just drawing anime and OCs and shit. 
> 
> But also Capcom, hmu when you start developing DMC6 ;;;;))) That’s like three years down the line, I’ll be graduated by then babes ;;;;;))))))))
> 
> (Incoming drinking game if you want to die: take a shot every time I say 'different' or some variation of it.) 
> 
> Anyway yeah this story’s been in development for like, exactly a year, and I made a lot of changes and adjustments surrounding DMC5 coming out. Firstly, the council made a decision to rework the timeline, but because it's a STUPIDASS decision, I've elected to ignore it. Therefore, the timeline is still 3 > 1 > anime > 4 > 2 > 5, and this story takes place between the anime and 4. I'm sorry Patty Lowell doesn't show up in person but when the bear comes in you'll know that she's here in spirit because I love her. And also YES I do really want to write a thing where Clear and Nero meet but that will come later lol
> 
> As for characters: Since Clear is human, I had to differentiate him from Lady, but since V has tattoos that are inherently demonic, I had to make Clear’s slightly different from those too. Additionally, because of the nature of the tattoo that you’ll find out later, I had to give him, Dante AND Nero enough of a skill set difference that Clear felt unique when stacked against four other characters. Somehow it feels inconsistent, but I tried to make it’s properties as consistent as possible; although, the amount of changes it went though, I'm surprised I even came to anything at all haha. Honestly just know that my excuse for anything out of whack is "Sparda Blood OP."
> 
> I also can’t go without saying anything about Dimitri! Because of DMC5, I was reminded that alchemy canonically exists in the DMC universe to create things like orbs, so I had to, of course, make him different from Nico who also creates weapons--so, I turned to in-universe means haha. I think alchemy in the main series is vastly different from witchcraft in the reboot, so while I think D and Kat would get along, I think they would have more fun talking about the differences of both arts and the practical applications of it. Also, I have to remember that Fullmetal Alchemist isn’t the baseline for alchemy, so I tried to do a lot of my own research into circles and such haha. In the end, I think I came up with a system I was happy with, that wasn’t just FMA’s law of equivalent exchange but still retained the circles and touching them elements of alchemy that I like. 
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy this in some way. I really like DMC and I've been into it since I started high school. I have so much fun playing the games (DMC5 was so good!!), and I channeled a lot of that love into this fic; or, I tried to at least. A lot of this is also just for fun and practice, but I used the weapon designs in my portfolio to get into art school so LOL Here we are~ I'm aiming for it to kind of read how the games play, so a lot of action and snappy interactions, but balanced by rest/respite chapters as a story should be lol I hope it comes across alright... 20 chapters feels almost as daunting to read as to write though, so please bare with me if you have any interest!!! As per usual, please tell me if there's anything glaringly wrong, especially in characterization and use of other languages *sweats

The sun had long since set by the time Clear started his job. His current client, an elderly man living in the east residential district of the city, had hired him to deal with some demons that had started appearing at night over the past week. He had mentioned that there hadn’t been any murders yet, so Clear’s job was to keep it that way by ridding the area of the hoard before it got any worse.

Hunting demons was a dangerous lifetime occupation to have, and yet he found it thrilling. His cellphone’s clock read 10:38 PM—the demons had been given more than enough time to come out and start raving in the streets. Although the sun had set around nine, anticipating that a couple other hunters would probably have been called in as well Clear didn’t waste any more time getting to the area. The night was still young, and they probably had the same idea: let the demons come out, then swoop in and take them out all at once.

Clear did want his money though, and no matter what he’d get it. But the amount of hunters that were just passing through recently was starting to get a bit annoying. It was compromising his second job.

He’d been running across rooftops for a little under half a mile. The shop he worked for, Arms Race, was just on the outskirts of town, to the south. The city it self was small and crowded, making it easy for him to get from there to his current job by foot. He only had one weapon with him tonight; his second job was to test-run the weapons his boss made, to make sure they were working fine and ready to be sold. Tonight, he had a semi-demonic AR-15 rifle, modified to have a special cartridge that would enhance bullets with demonic energy. The weapon was a bit on the heavy side for the style of gun it was, but it also had a few other mods added to it as per request so Clear wasn’t too surprised.

As he got closer to the residential area, the sound of gunfire caught his attention. He jumped from one roof to another, sliding to a stop when a large cloud of smoke rose up a couple buildings away from him. The explosion that accompanied it was almost deafening, and he could hear car alarms start to blare instantly. Below him, the startled murmur of families in their homes piped up. It was a good thing he was called in tonight since it seemed like the demons were blowing up cars now.

He took off again towards the explosion, moving one house away so he could jump down without diving through the smoke. As soon as he landed he had his rifle braced against his shoulder and aimed. There were bodies of at least a dozen demons scattered around, already disintegrating into ash. The road had been cratered by whatever created the explosion, cars nearby dented on the sides closest to the street, and their windows shattered to hell and back. A couple of garbage cans had been set on fire. Clear didn’t see what had caused the damage immediately even as the smoke cleared a bit.

He was barely given the chance to observe anymore after his initial sweep. A set of demons came up behind him; three that shambled along the ground, two small flying ones with stubby wings, and one that seemed to be a large, animated cloak floating with scissors for hands. Before the scissored one could sweep at him he’d already fired.

He knocked one hand away from him, the other bullet nailing it through the chest and blasting away part of it’s cloak. Each bullet swirled with bright red demonic energy, exploding a second time upon impact due to the enhancement. The rifle had a healthy amount of kick to it, Clear noted, meaning it was safe to fire by a normal human.

He backed up a little more as the other two demons suddenly dashed at him with speed he didn’t expect them to have on their mangled limbs. He shot one down with two well-aimed shots, but the other two managed to get closer to him than he liked. He cursed to himself, not having his usual knives was incredibly inconvenient.

Using the butt of the rifle as a blunt force weapon Clear smashed the demon’s face in. When it collapsed to the ground, he stepped on its back to hold it there and shot it in the head, splattering it across the pavement. The next demon went for the same attack but he was fast to duck under swinging arms. Clear shoved the barrel of the rifle into the demon’s stomach and fired. It flew back into a nearby wall with a shriek. Clear finished it off with one more shot to the head.

He turned his attention next to the two winged ones. The cloaked demon had recovered the scissors he’d blown away, and the two little demons were now holding what looked to be apples in their hands. One bit down on the fruit, then tossed it towards Clear’s feet; he got a good look at the grenade when it landed. Jumping back out of the way, he took a shot at the other demon, hitting the grenade just after it was thrown. The explosion decimated the demon that threw the bomb, and singed the other two nearby.

Before he could finish off the group on his own, an actual missile flew past his ear. It landed in the ground just below the two floating demons and drowned their screams with the sound of the explosion it made. Heat wafted across Clear’s face. His instant reaction was to use his collar to cover his mouth so he didn’t inhale any smoke while further backing out of range towards the first crater.

On his way back he bumped into the hunter that had caused all the destruction. Where his upper-arm hit her chest, he could tell that she wasn’t much taller than him. Still, when he turned to see her, he was surprised at the size of the rocket launcher she was using to fight with. It was almost as tall as her, blade on the end not counted.

“Watch it,” she muttered to him as they moved away from each other. She had short black hair and was wearing mostly white, but what stood out the most was the scar across the bridge of her nose and her two-colored eyes.

“Pardon me. Couldn’t see you around all the smoke you kicked up.”

She shrugged slightly and looked back towards the demons in front of them. Clear followed her eyes, but instantly turned when he heard more behind him. He didn’t even bother counting, just stood his ground with the woman behind him and started shooting them down.

Behind him, she’d switched to using a pair of semi-autos. He wasn’t sure how that was gonna get the job done, but that was the least of his concerns when the Scissorhands started getting frisky. One of the winged bastards threw a grenade which Clear shot out of the air again, but the Scissorhands ducked away from explosion and then spun towards him. He managed to shoot one of the hands to knock it off balance, following it with his gun across the other hunter’s shoulder as it ducked past them. Apparently her demon did the same thing, as she also threw a gun over his shoulder to match. The two fired in unison, then spun away from each other to stand back to back still facing opposite sides again. With a couple more well-placed shots he finished the Scissorhands on his side and whatever demons she’d left alive.

The alleyway went silent as he lowered his gun. He heard her holster her weapons behind him, and turned to face her. Now that he could get a better look at her, he noted that she was armed to the teeth with various guns and hunting knives. His tattoo pulsed at the prospect of of feasting on her blood, but he shut down the feeling before it got worse. He hadn't absorbed any demon blood yet, there was too much ash in the air and on the ground to get a good amount for his tattoo. He clicked his tongue.

"Well, thanks for the help, lady, but I'll handle clean up here."

She looked up from where she'd been staring at his weapon. Her brown eye caught the light of it, making her iris subtly glow red.

"Are you one of those out-of-town hunters?" She asked in response. Clear clicked his tongue again.

"Are _you_ one of those out-of-town hunters?"

"Fair. That gun of your's is pretty interesting."

"It's a custom job. I can give you a business card."

She chuckled under her breath and shook her head. "No need. I've got everything I need right here."

She pat her rocket launcher appreciatively. Her expression was fond for a moment, but hardened when she looked at him again.

"Anyway, _I'll_ handle clean-up, I was on site first and if you're not from around here the town can get pretty dangerous at night," she said.

He opened his mouth to respond, but quickly raised his gun instead. She flinched out of the way of his bullet whizzing past her ear; it exploded inside the chest of one of the shambling demon behind her, sending one of its arms flying before it screamed and collapsed.

"You should definitely leave this to me."

"Yeah, no. Hey, thanks for the almost-piercing, but head home–" She suddenly whipped a pistol out from the holster behind her back and shot at a demon behind Clear. He spun around to see a perfect shot through the center of the forehead. "-I'm quite fine with finishing the job."

He turned back to her with a half-hearted glare. These out-of-towners were getting more ballsy every time. But the way she spoke, she had to have been from around the city, or at least spent a lot of time here.

More noise caught his attention. The sound of cheering demons one... no, two alleys over. One more on the other side. He and the lady looked at each other, then both sighed.

"Fine, fine. You take this alley, I'll deal with the other one," she delegated as she holstered her pistol. Clear gave a nod of acknowledgement.

"Watch your back this time, lady. I won't be there to help you."

"Don't need it!"

He couldn't help but chuckle at her chipper tone, but she definitely was tense underneath it. To be fair, he was too, anticipating a better fight. His tattoo was positively yearning for it.

* * *

 

The mission went rather quickly after that. He checked his phone, the time was about 1 AM by the time he was done. He hadn't heard the lady's explosions in a little while, but she was probably fine. Still, he didn't see he when he climbed back up to the rooftops. With a shrug, he started heading back to the warehouse he and his boss called home. 


	2. Mission 2: Home Sweet Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whole point of this chapter is just Clear and D being roommates and banting, but honestly it's the most boring chapter I've had to write LOL;; I just hope I made it cute and natural enough wwwwwww I'm so bad at writing character interaction consistently.
> 
> Also thank you for your patience!! I'm just flying back from AX (writing in the airport haha) and have been really really busy prepping and going to that. But my REAL summer break starts now so I hope to get a lot of work done and a ton of chapters posted!!!

Clear awoke slowly to the sound of his alarm. It was just gentle acoustics, but it helped ease him awake in the mornings, when he could take his time getting ready for the day. Letting the song play for a bit longer, he took his time stretching and pulling back the blankets to get up. His room’s floor was cold on his feet where there wasn’t a carpet. He shut off his alarm.

It didn’t take him long to get ready. Throwing on clean jeans and a T-shirt and brushing his hair back, he exited his room on the makeshift second floor. The living area was towards the back of the warehouse, separated from the ‘shop’ in front by a long row of shelving covered by unused sheets and tarps. The ‘second floor’ was a raised metal and wood loft area that supported both Dimitri and Clear’s rooms. Below that, they had their bathroom and a small kitchen area. They’d built it themselves pretty early on, but it cost a pretty penny that had Clear taking hunting jobs back to back—out of town, too. Still, it got them a fridge, and a sink, and some cabinets, and a stove, so they—well, he—could cook for them in his downtime.

The stairs to the rooms were metal and cold on Clear’s bare feet, making him quickly rush down to the bathroom to where he’d left his blood-soaked shoes the night before. He was used to using them repeatedly after hunts, but they were getting worn. Maybe it was time for a new set. And a second set for home while he was at it. Their cramped bathroom held their washer and dryer; he grabbed a pair of socks from the dryer, reminding himself to run a load today. After he had his shoes on he went about making breakfast.

Eggs, fried ham, some toast, nothing too fancy. Neither he nor his roommate were very big eaters at breakfast. Still, Clear did like to have fun with seasoning and plating, a hobby he’d picked up from his mother; he put the ham and scrambled eggs over the toast like an open-faced sandwich and sprinkled pepper and chives across the top to garnish.

The smell of food seemed to rouse Dimitri. Just barely before Clear was finished with the eggs, his boss and roommate stumbled down the stairs. Rubbing his eyes tiredly—he was still wearing his pajamas—he flopped down onto their dining room table. That was a generous thing to call it though, as it was only a picnic bench they’d daringly stolen from a park.

“G’morning,” Clear said. Dimitri mumbled something back. He looked like he was about to fall asleep again. Clear placed the plate in front of Dimitri.

“Up late?”

“Yeah. Reading.”

“More alchemy?”

“Mmhmm…”

Dimitri was the neater eater between the two. He ate with a fork and knife, separating out bites that were too large to fit in his mouth. Clear just picked up the whole piece of toast and ate it one large bite at a time. He let Dimitri swallow his current mouthful before piping up again.

“I thought you were already a master at your craft. Just studying up?”

“You can always learn more…” Dimitri stretched and put his utensils down to lean back on the bench. Clear could feel his knee bouncing under the table; he was starting to wake up.

“I guess. Anything interesting?”

“Some stuff.”

“Too tired to tell me, huh.”

“I’ll tell you when I wake up.”

Clear chuckled and shook his head. He went back to eating too, letting them munch in silence. As usual breakfast was a slow affair as Dimitri finally really woke up to start telling Clear all his findings and prototypes from the night before. When the drowsiness had worn off, his mind was always running a mile a minute. Clear was surprised he rarely stumbled when he spoke, especially with the speed of his speech.

“—and then I realized, oh, it makes sense that using a demonic language would work better to direct demonic energy. To think, I was really stumbling around this whole time using Latin and English! So that’s what I was reading up on last night.”

Clear nodded his head. It wasn’t that he wasn’t paying attention, he just wasn’t the brains of the operation so a lot of information went straight over his head. Still, he was happy to see Dimitri so excited about the new subject matter.

“I tried it out on your knives. Reworked the mods a bit and did some cleaning too, since you let the absorption system get jammed. I told you to clean it regularly!”

“Hey, I was! But you took them before I could clean that night!”

“It’ll cost you, yanno. Damaging my creation like that, the utter disrespect,” Dimitri tsk’d, waving his fork. Clear waved a hand dismissively at him.

“I make you breakfast and dinner, that’s payment enough.”

Dimitri just laughed. As they were finishing the last couple bites of their food the phone rang. They both looked at it. Clear, still chewing, looked towards his partner first.

“That’s the phone,” he said around his full mouth.

“Can’t you get it this time?” Dimitri asked. Clear slowed down the speed at which he was chewing, earning an annoyed look.

“‘M still eatin’,” Clear said. He motioned to the phone with his hand. “Better answer, could be important.”

Dimitri let out an exaggerated groan. “Fine. Time to clock in!”

The phone was at Dimitri’s work desk in the center of the warehouse. It was in an convenient enough location for either of them to get to, though more often than not Clear tripped on his way to it; Dimitri had significantly more finesse. He slapped on a chipper tone as soon as he picked up, immediately going into his customer service persona. The shift every time made Clear shudder in disturbed fear—no demon could invoke terror in him like the way Dimitri’s absolutely fake customer service voice did.

“This is Arms Race, how can we help you compete?”

There was a moment of silence while Dimitri waited for the caller to give the password. When he continued speaking, it mean’t they’d correctly answered, “superiority and accumulation.”

“Ah, I understand. Thank you for calling. Are you looking for a weapon or do you need to hire us for services?" Silence, then, “services? Ah, maintenance on a weapon? I see, I see! Sure, I can do that, can you come in to drop it off? I’ll have some questions.”

Clear tuned out the rest of the conversation to focus on cleaning up the table instead. Dishes were fast, but he had yesterday’s plates to clean too. Then, he’d have to make a grocery list since they were running low on dinner supplies and D’s cupped noodles. The call was maybe only five, ten minutes, so Dimitri was back at the table quickly.

“Seems like someone who knew you.”

“Huh?” Clear asked. “Who, the customer?”

“Yeah. She mentioned that you guys met last night and blamed you for her gun needing maintenance. What did you do yesterday?”

Clear furrowed his brow, trying to remember. “I mean, we both almost shot each other in opposite ears, Idunno about anything other than that.”

Dimitri shook his head, shaking his bangs into his face. “Really? This is why other hunters don’t wanna work with you. Imagine all the employees we could have if our hiring manager wasn’t so strict!”

“I’m pretty sure she was from out of town, as are ninety percent of the other potential hires I’ve ‘chased off.’ Come on, you like paying this place off don’t you?”

“Okay, okay, fair.”

Clear finished the dishes. He ten went to run a load of laundry while Dimitri went to the center of the workshop to start his work for the day. With the house chores mostly done, Clear also started heading towards the front of the shop.

“Gonna head out to get some groceries. Need anything while I’m gone?”

“If you’re offering! Can you bring me back a Hell Hopper, preferably one with the scooping chainsaw blade arms? If you can’t find one don’t worry about it.”

Clear raised an eyebrow. “You know those things are bigger than I am, right?”

“You’ll figure it out,” as Dimitri’s reply from the back of the warehouse. “I’ll finish your knives before the lady stops by to drop off her weapon.”

“Sounds good. Oh, hey, I’m gonna need some touch ups done when I get back!”

“Oh, maybe I can practice writing!”

“Ha! You know it won’t stay.”

“That’s the point!” Dimitri called with a laugh. Clear heard him shuffling around before he continued. “Well, give me some time to make up a new mix, I got what I could out of your knives but I’ll need to refine the blood a bit.”

“Take your time. See you when I get back!”

Clear left the shop, flipping on the sign above the door as he did. Arms Race lit up in bright white and green neon, alerting the world to the shop’s presence.

* * *

 

“D, I’m back,” Clear called into the workshop. It was a cluttered mess as usual, with absolutely no open table space and impossibly less open floor. They had an entire warehouse to themselves, albeit a small one, and somehow Dimitri still managed to take up all of it. Kicking scrap metal and broken tools—most of them not there that morning—out of the way, Clear made his way to Dimitri’s main workspace in the center of the warehouse. A set of four tables and two benches arranged with some shelves placed sporadically near them—all, also covered in junk. On an open corner of one of the desks Clear set the groceries down for a moment.

Dimitri was napping at one desk in the middle. His head was tucked neatly into his crossed arms, his back rising and falling steadily with his breath. His lights were still on around him making his pale hair seem almost white. Clear shook his head at his roommate but he honestly couldn’t help letting out a little chuckle. Taking Dimitri’s shoulder in his hand, Clear shook him awake.

“Hey, D. Wake up.”

“Mngnhh, five more minutes…” Dimitri mumbled back. Clear rolled his eyes.

“I’m back with groceries. Want some lunch?”

Dimitri shifted away from him, weakly pointing to an empty cup of instant ramen.

“Added spinach,” he mumbled.

“Good thing I got some more today. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

It took Clear some maneuvering to pick Dimitri up. He wriggled through the junk on the floor, careful not to trip, towards the back of the warehouse to their rooms. Clear shrugged past the tarp-covered shelves and bee-lined for Dimitri’s room up the stairs. He nudged Dimitri’s door open with his toe when he got there and deposited his roommate on his bed. Even though he had a couple projects and computers strewn about, it was the one part of Dimitri’s domain that had a somewhat visible floor.

“There we go,” Clear said to himself with a shake of his head. “I’ll see ya at dinner.”

Dimitri mumbled something back and curled into his blankets. Clear slipped out quietly towards the front of the shop again to watch in case any customers came in. The main hanger doors were always closed so the only entryway was the small door to the right. It was also the only space in the front of the shop that had guest space, with a small couch by the door and a low coffee table. It was just meant to be pretty and presentable, although not many people looked passed D’s many shelves when they came in.

Maybe while Dimitri was asleep, Clear could do a little house cleaning. It would be back to messy the next time D woke up, but it would at least make it easier for Clear to move around until then.


	3. Mission 3: The Man in Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aight now that you've sat through two chapters that are effectively the length of a one-shot, it's time to REALLY get the party started :3c 
> 
> (featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series.)

It wasn’t long until Dimitri woke up. Only about two hours, which didn’t give Clear time to clean as much as he wanted, but he was able to kick enough debris out of the way to make their main walkway presentable. While he was cleaning he noticed the lady’s gun from yesterday on the customer repair shelf to the left of the door; she must have stopped in while he was shopping.

After Dimitri was up, he did touchups to Clear’s tattoo. His primary weapons, dual knives called Tatzelwurm, were the first Devil Arms Clear had ever received. The weapons were modded by D to have a blood absorption system that allowed them to suck blood out of demons and store a bit in the blade, almost like a built in syringe. He could also release blood from the blades to feed his tattoo, allowing him to continue fighting in a pinch, and have a material gathering method for repairing his tattoo.

His tattoo was the only thing that permitted him to use the knives, as his former mentor had told him that humans couldn’t use demonic weapons. That tattoo… It was demonic in nature, so when he got a cut that interrupted the line when it scarred over, Dimitri needed to use a mix of demon blood and normal tattoo ink to recreate the lines. The ink bound to his skin and the tattoo to the demon energy, fixing the damage and keeping it ‘attached’ to him in a way.

As a plus, the new lines would instantly heal over as well, thanks to any strong demonic blood that had been absorbed. And he had killed quite a few Hell Hoppers the last time he was out with his knives. But because the tattoo’s demonic nature was somewhat sentient, anything outside of the pre-ordained lines didn’t stay on his skin.

That didn’t stop Dimitri from practicing his new writing anyway.

By the time they were finished, two phone calls had come in back-to-back begging Clear to take care of some demons wreaking havoc in the center of town. The sun was starting to set and the sky was dark when Clear set out. With Tatzelwurm’s sheath strapped to his thigh, he was able to also take a new weapon with him: a gunblade D had made for a client earlier in the week. With the payment from that weapon and what Clear would bring in from this job and the one from the previous night, they’d be swimming in cash for a while.

When he arrived to the center of town, the fountain had been overrun with Pack Rats. Furry little bastards, with long prehensile tails and massive mouthes that took up their entire faces. They had strong legs too, making them fast at clearing distances. Clear’d been kicked in the ribs by one once, he was still impressed that he’d found a strong enough demon to heal all the damage done to him.

There were a couple of Hell Hoppers too. The massive, armored mantis shrimp had three different sets of arms, but only a grabber and a slicer showed up tonight. D had asked for one of the chainsaws so Clear would have to remember to save one for last. He saw a pair of Scissorhands as well, prowling the area for more humans to feast on.

From where he was on the roof, Clear could see that they’d already claimed a couple lives and were feasting on the remains. He clicked his tongue, forcing himself not to hold the blame that he couldn’t save them. Instead, he focused on aiming at the floating demons.

One shot found home in the back of one Scissorhands’ head. It exploded with a cut-off shriek, alerting the other demons to Clear’s location. His second shot was deflected by the other Scissorhands’ scissors, making him click his tongue. The gunblade he’d been given wasn’t the best for long range forcing him to jump down from the roof.

Clear used the Scissorhands as a springboard in mid-air when it charged at him. He shot at its back a few times while flipping off it, landing in a crouch on the cobblestone. The group of Pack Rats charged at him with one of the Hell Hoppers. Wielding the gunblade in one hand and one of his knives in the other, he sliced the pack down with little difficulty. He hooked one by its leg on his blade and threw it in front of the Hell Hopper so it grabbed the Pack Rat instead of Clear; the Pack Rat was ruthlessly crushed by both of the Hell Hopper's hands. Clear jumped back and resumed firing while holding his own blade between his teeth. Dimitri had added a second trigger that converted the bullets to demonic-infused spread shots; it handled the remaining crowd pretty well.

There was a moment where the demons seemed to be backing up from him, but then out of the corner of his eye he watched something red and misty appear behind the second Hell Hopper. At first he thought it was another Scissorhands, but upon closer inspection it was a much brighter red color. It still had a skull for a face, but this one looked more bird-like than ram-like. Before he could contemplate further, it suddenly dove into the back of the Hopper. Its face became a mask covering the massive beady eyes and mandibles of the Hopper. Then the Hopper’s usual green and blue body became bright red, and it reared back and shrieked; the noise made Clear cover his ears. When he glanced up again, most of the remaining demons were calling back in unison, their eyes and claws bright red not with blood, but with energy. He’d never seen this kind of thing happen before. Damn, and more demons were pouring out of the broken fountain too, they must have come from the sewers.

Reloading the gunblade, he met a few of the Pack Rats head on. They weren’t difficult to cut down after Tatzelwurm’s poison started setting in and rendered their legs mostly immobile. That allowed him to hit them each with a spread shot in the chest and take them down. He sheathed the weapon on his back and drew his second knife when he got closer to the Hell Hopper.

It seemed to be moving faster. He dodged under one hit with a spin and slashed at its front two legs, then ducked behind it when it swung again. He used his momentum to swing himself up on its back. He dug his knives into a kink in the armored body. Red smoke poured from the wound. It licked up his arms, sinking into his tattoo and making him feel somehow stronger and more exhausted at the same time. At first, the frustration blindsided him. But with another slash-stab-slash that ripped the piece of armor off to free more steam, anger overrode his senses. The more he attacked the more Clear felt himself losing control over himself. His sight almost physically narrowed to what was in front of him. 

The demon screeched in agony as he stabbed up higher just under the head. With the last shreds of its life and energy, it sent out a wave of pure malice, palpable enough to send Clear stumbling back. Blind rage suddenly overtook him and without even thinking about the next best course of action he was ripping into the remaining hoard of demons. He could barely hear their shrieking over the pounding blood in his ears.

He stood panting over a disintegrating pile of corpses a moment later. He was numbly aware of how in pain his body was, but between the power surging through his tattoo and the adrenaline running hot in his veins, he couldn’t really feel anything other than dull aches. He realized he was shaking, his tattoo bleeding pure red and practically smoking off him, but he was still itching for a fight.

As if to answer his desires, footsteps echoed behind him. They were heavy, clinking, as though the owner was wearing boots with too many buckles. Clear turned to examine who’d stepped into the carnage to challenge him next.

The man was quite tall, almost clearing six feet, with shaggy, snow white hair. He was wearing all red, the most prominent item he was wearing being his long leather coat. On his back was a massive claymore. Although he looked to be casually observing the scene—he hand his hands in his pockets, though Clear could tell they were balled—the sharpness in his bright blue eyes said he was doing more than just looking around appreciatively.

“And who’re you?” Clear grit out.

“I should be asking you that! You killed all of these?”

“Who else could’a done it?”

Somewhere in the back of his head, he felt out of control. The last shreds of rational, human thought allowing him to speak but the rage pounding in the forefront of his mind could only be contained for so long. He knew it was coming from whatever his tattoo had absorbed when he was hit with that demon's final attack. It was wrong. It wasn’t him. It felt terrible. And yet he couldn’t stop himself from stepping over the line.

“I was just checkin’,” the man answered. “Didn’t think another human would be able to pull off this level of carnage.”

 _It’s not an insult,_ Clear told himself, but despite every effort he made to hold himself back, the _need_ to fight, to damage, _to kill,_ was just too strong. He couldn’t stop himself from charging forward. He lashed out with his knife, aiming to stab the man straight in the chest, only finding himself stumbling forward. Whipping around Clear swing in an arc with his gunblade, but the man was already too far away.

“Feisty!” he teased with a shrug of his arms. That cocky smile was infuriating.

Clear growled an insult and charged forward again, feinting the same attack as before. This time however, when the man went to sidestep him, Clear dropped down into a crouch and swept his leg out. His kick connected and the man made a noise of almost intrigue as he went down. When he hit the ground he rolled back out of the range of another slash. Clear chased him but he didn’t hesitate, rolling again into a flip and standing up—this time he drew a pair of guns and Clear spun back on his knees, the blade of his test weapon flipping back to reveal it’s gun barrel.

The man didn’t fire. Clear waited to see what he would do; his head was still pounding but he could feel the aggression starting to ware off, maybe if the guy didn’t say anything…

He opened his mouth. Clear shot twice, then rushed forward to shut him up before he could goad him further.

It was a game of tag, really. Clear would attempt to land a strike, and the man would either dodge it or knock it away with his guns. He never once fired, and that served to piss Clear off even more. The man was skilled at hand-to-hand combat, so much so that Clear couldn’t even land a blow to him; at one point he’d even managed to knock Clear’s knife from his hand. Letting out a frustrated growl he shuffled forward and went for a quick kick, finding purchase against the man’s chest enough to push him back. Clear went for a backhand stab to his chest with the gunblade to follow through, only to have his forearm blocked. He retaliated by kneeing the guy in the stomach, winding him enough to let Clear go and make them both stumble back. Clear was firing before he could even register pulling the trigger.

The man fired back. The tiny clinks of the bullets meeting each other in midair were masqueraded by the gunshots. Part of Clear was impressed that the man was skilled enough to instantly be able to match is every shot, but the part of him that still wanted blood was absolutely seething. What worked on this guy? Could he just not die? He looked to be an older gent, so there was no way he could be this aggravatingly agile, especially not in a heavy trench coat or carrying a full-sized claymore. The man, taking advantage of Clear pausing to think, stood up to dust off his coat.

“Are you finished? I’m thinkin’ we could just have a nice little chat.”

“Chat with this,” Clear hissed back. He flipped the trigger back to single shots and fired again. This time his shots found their mark just above his knees. He stumbled back as Clear ripped his discarded knife from the ground and dove in for a slash to his face. The man ducked as best he could, staggering back on wounded legs and though he was able to get just out of range Clear still had his other blade. With a flick of his wrist the blade flipped out, earning a grunt when it severed enough in his shoulder joint to make his arm and hand go limp. With his other hand, the man grabbed Clear by the wrist and shoved him back, jerking the blade out at the same time.

The next thing Clear knew he was on his back on the ground, with a foot about to connect with his face. Brilliantly, he sat up so the man only kicked dust behind him, and swung the gunblade out, finding it lodged into the man’s shin. A quick jerk from him ripped it out of Clear’s hand and sent it skidding away. The force of it made him lurch forward, so Clear just followed through with a sloppy roll, stumbling to his feet. He shuffled back in again going for the same kick as before, unsurprised when the man dodged. They traded blows for a moment until Clear ducked under his arm and aimed a few quick stabs at his stomach. With the way he backed up he didn’t even seem winded. Clear followed but instead of allowing himself to be baited into another fruitless fistfight, he threw himself into a slide between the man’s legs. Quickly Clear pushed himself to his feet, reaching for the massive sword on the man’s back to finish him off with.

The man whipped around faster than Clear could react and slapped his hand away, then gripped his collar—with his once wounded arm, no less—and swept his feet from under him to shove him down to the floor. Clear could barely even reel from the hit before the cold bite of metal was crossed over his neck and he was struggling to breathe. The man’s weight above him kept him pinned, but even if he tried to fight it the lack of oxygen would kick his ass quicker than he could get free.

“Are we done?” He was asked. Clear snarled in answer. The man rolled his eyes.

“You’re pretty agile, for a human. But you’re not all you say you are, are you,” the man noted. His icy eyes traveled to Clear’s tattoo, or what he could see of it under the blood on his forearms.

“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Except for one gal I know, humans barely stay cognitive after getting cursed. But you…” The man began to pull away. Clear reared up but was quickly shoved back down, choking at the pressure on his neck. He clawed at the man’s wrists, using the last burst of strength in his tattoo to stab his wrist and drag his knife down, blood spraying. The man grunted above him, although Clear didn’t bother gauging his reaction when his tattoo started to writhe at the offering splashed over it.

Something demonic in the man’s blood hit Clear so quickly he stopped struggling. Raw power surged through his veins, so much that even a tiny grip on his wrist was enough for Clear to send him flying. The rush was gone as soon as it came, leaving Clear to cough for breath as he sat up.

“I’m not all human, huh?” Clear rasped out as he gingerly touched his neck.

“We’re both full of surprises, huh,” the man teased, reclining leisurely against the dented car hood he’d landed on. He coughed to himself, taking the moment of rest to examine his injuries.

“Shut your mouth,” Clear grumbled, finding himself calm now. Almost as if whatever was in the man’s blood had also perfectly cleared his head. He’d never seen a demon that took the form of a human before, let alone one that had enough of a conscience to speak to him. It would explain the superhuman agility and strength, why Tatzelwurm's poison didn’t seem to slow him in the slightest, but why would it be toying with him? Was it just looking for another meal—no. It hadn’t even struck him once until the end of the fight, and even then it wasn’t aiming to kill him, just to restrain him. And, it had mentioned knowing another human. Just what was with this demon?

“What kind of demon are you?”

“How about we exchange stories? You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”

“Sure, why don’t we get some coffee and scones while we’re at it?” Clear shot back.

“Ooh, I could go for something to eat. But pizza’s more my speed.”

A demon that ate pizza? If it weren’t for the fading ache at his neck, Clear would be convinced he was dreaming. At his silence, the demon chuckled.

“The name’s Dante. What’s your’s?” At Clear’s glare he just laughed again. “The silent treatment, huh? I’m not gonna hurt you, kid.”

“I could tell. I just can’t figure out why.”

“Simple. I’m not in the business of killing humans.” Dante stood up from the car's hood, strolling to where he’d kicked Clear’s weapon away. As he stood, through his shredded clothing Clear could see that every injury he’d given the demon had healed completely. Not even a scar. Clear followed his movements—now that he knew he was vulnerable and the demon, Dante, could heal, he knew he’d lose their next fight. Clear pushed himself to his feet.

“So you… kill other demons?” He asked. Dante gave him a hum. “You’re a hunter?”

“Look, I’m all up for chatting, but it really feels unfair when you don’t answer my questions.”

“And if you’re lying about being a hunter, I’m just supposed to believe a demon I just met?”

“Kid, have I tried to kill you yet?” Clear motioned to his probably-purple neck. “Not in self defense,” Dante tacked on. He… Really hadn’t, but that was the confusing part. Until he could wrap his head around it, Clear had no intention of being forthcoming. Dante retrieved his weapon and started coming towards him, letting the gunblade hang by his side. Clear couldn’t see any aggression from his body language, but he could be a good actor—he still backed up just a bit.

“Interesting sword you’ve got here. Who made it for you?”

“A friend.”

“A friend who can make fake Devil Arms. They’re pretty talented.”

Dante stopped a bit away from him, flipping the weapon in his hand so the grip faced Clear. Looking between the weapon and those chilly eyes, he hesitantly reached out to take it. As his fingers brushed against his gun, Dante suddenly jerked away, barking “boo!” and making Clear jump practically out of his skin. The demon tossed his head back and  _laughed._  

“Ha ha, get your giggles out now,” Clear said, snatching the gun away when it was offered to him a second time.

“I just couldn’t help it, you’re so high-strung.” Dante rested his hands on his hips, looking down on Clear as he checked over the weapon to see if it was damaged. The mechanism to retract the blade was broken, presumably from when Dante kicked it away, but otherwise it was fine. Still, it was impressive that a little flick of his leg had messed the weapon up _at all._

“Why do you care about it,” Clear finally sighed, backing up a little bit more. Dante didn’t chase him, and it seemed he could still get some information out of him—he didn’t seem to be too guarded.

“I just like to know who’s been running me out of business lately.” Dante shook his head and crossed his arms. “I haven’t been getting too many calls lately, making rent this month might be tough.”

He paid rent? What were his tax returns like, Clear wondered, since he sure didn’t file taxes on this kind of work. But… Maybe they were in the same boat, if they were in the same business. It didn’t make sense. Thinking about a demon killing other demons to pay his rent and taxes made his head spin, what the hell was going on?

“Start taking jobs out of town,” Clear offered as an answer. With the adrenaline fading, he was starting to feel the tiredness set in. He touched at his neck again, not feeling any pulsing pain from where he for sure was bruised. There had previously been an ache radiating from his left thigh earlier too, where he was pretty sure he’d been stabbed to bone by a Scissorhands but even that pain wasn’t there. It was definitely... strange, to say the least.

“What's that got to do with it anyway, who’s been taking your business? There’s plenty of hunters in this town.”

“That’s the problem, a lot of them aren’t even regulars. They’re out here testing weapons before they head home, that’s what I was looking into.”

“So what do you figure is the root?”

“If my intel’s right,” Dante smirked, and something amused flashed behind his eyes. “It’s this hotshot hunter and his arms dealer friend.”

As Dante motioned to him the hair on Clear’s arms stood up. With a busted weapon and his tattoo screaming for more food, he couldn’t fight Dante head on. He’d have to run, but he was sure he’d be caught up to. If Dante did want to erase the competition right now Clear was free game. He put on a brave face instead.

“Thinking about doing something to them?”

“If I file a cease and desist, do you think they’d accept that? I mean, I guess I can’t tell them to stop being competitors, but the market for demon hunting is ever-shrinking! I have bills to pay!”

Clear was getting tired of being shocked every time Dante opened his mouth. He wasn’t going to try to kill him?

“So do we,” he finally huffed. The laid-back attitude Dante held was probably to make Clear calm down, but he just felt more tense.

“Maybe we can come to an agreement of sorts," Dante said.

“Like what? I’m not about to stop doing my job just because you can’t keep up with yours.”

“Ouch! What did I say to deserve such scorn!”

Clear glared at Dante as he laughed. After he’d had his chuckle, he shook his head and looked at Clear again.

“We should split the town. I’ll take the half my shop is in, you stick to yours.”

“Nice sentiment, no,” Clear answered instead. He turned towards the broken fountain. Though he was tired, he still had to deal with the hive in the sewers, that was what he was hired to do. Although his blade was broken, he was breathing much easier, and his head wasn’t pounding anymore. Although the job probably should have been left to this other demon, Clear couldn’t just let it go. With a resigned sigh, Clear brushed passed him towards the break in the ground and piping that lead to the underground.

“Our shop’s all about superiority. You want more money? Start stealing jobs back from us.”

It might have been a bad idea to challenge the demon, but if he wasn’t going to kill Clear and his only gripe was not having enough work, he could afford to be a little rude to him. It wasn’t like Dante could take Clear’s jobs anyway; he wouldn’t let him. Throwing a wave over his shoulder, Clear dropped into the sewers to finish his work for the night.

* * *

 

The rest of the mission wasn’t hard. Clear had heard Dante follow after him, but they’d almost instantly split up and Clear hadn’t heard from him at all after that. The first thing he did when he got back to Arms Race was head for the bathroom. Flicking on the light, he leaned over the sink and into the mirror so he could examine his neck for damage. He’d been breathing so easily since that man’s blood was devoured, it couldn’t have been…

There barely seemed to be any trace of a wound. As Clear turned his head this way and that, the only marks on his neck that indicated anything had happened were a couple of fading yellow bruises and a little soreness when he touched them. Considering how much they’d hurt earlier, how hard it was to breathe, and how he bruised in general, he could have sworn that they’d be worse off—there weren’t even marks from where the guns had pressed into his skin. As far as he knew demons didn’t have blood types, so there was no way he’d have the same type. But Clear had only healed after he’d killed particularly strong demons so…

Just how strong was Dante then?

A shiver ran up his spine. He forced himself to move away from the mirror to complete his nightly routine and not think about the man in red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now it's DMC cuz Dante got stabbed Multiple Times. The whole thing that made me wanna write this fight was the gun choking (flashes back to 4 with that midair grappling smh my son Nero biting the gun like that smh smh smh) but things should start heating up from here on out :3c


	4. Mission 4: An Unusual Proposal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm... It's a little _too_ quiet around here... How long has it been? Three days? Time to post again. *cracks knuckles*

Breathing had been easy all night. When Clear awoke in the morning, he did a quick check with his phone’s camera to see if the bruises were still there. Sure enough, the yellow splotches still covered his neck, but they were nowhere near sore when he touched them. It still shocked him, that Dante’s blood was powerful enough to heal such extensive damage _this_ much.

Throwing off the covers, he rose with a stretch. A few minutes later he was dressed in his usual attire, jeans and a T-shirt, and started to head for the door. He paused with his hand on the knob and looked back to his dresser; the flannel he usually tied around his waist was laying across it, maybe he should…

He took it and threw it on before exiting. It had been a while since he’d worn it as intended, but bruises on his neck was awkward enough to hide. Maybe D wouldn’t notice them around the shadows cast by the collar.

He started on breakfast. At the smell of bacon cooking, Dimitri’s door opened and he came down the stairs, flopping tiredly into his seat at their table. He rested his head in his arms, one eye following Clear as he cooked.

“Mornin’.”

“G’mornin, Clear.”

“Sleep well last night?”

“Yup. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Sorry. I was back late, got caught up in something.”

“Something wouldn’t have to do with why you’re wearing that shirt as a shirt, would it?”

Clear didn’t look up from his pan as he spoke, “not really. It’s just a little cold this morning.”

Dimitri didn’t press him. After he finished cooking, he served two plates and took them to the table. As he was sitting down Dimitri eyed him sharply.

“What?” Clear asked around a bite of avocado toast.

“Something, huh? Sure you didn’t get caught up with _someone?”_ Dimitri said, pointing at Clear’s neck. Clear’s hand flew to touch his skin, which only made Dimitri’s smirk wider. Clear gently smacked his hand away and focused entirely on what he was eating.

“D, what the hell, no. They’re just some bruises I got from a fight yesterday. I got choked out, it’s not like it’s a big deal…”

“Yeah, and you _never hide_ bruises. Some choking, huh.”

“Dimitri—!” The alchemist was laughing at Clear’s annoyed expression, eyes teasing. Clear gave a defeated sigh and looked back at his food.

“They just look really bad, okay? They’re not like on my arms or legs or somewhere that's less awkward.”

“No, it's fine to show them off. I’m happy for you, I really thought you’d be alone forever, what with how rude you are. When are you gonna let me meet ‘em?”

“I’m telling you, it was no-one. Just some other hunter I got in a scuffle with.”

“Oooh, was it the lady? I can slip your number to her when I return Kalina Ann—“

“Definitely not her! God, I take care of you and you repay me by blowing this out of proportion—“

They heard the door of the shop open. Since Dimitri had barely even touched his food, Clear started standing to go greet their customer. Before he could get too far, said customer called out to them.

“Hey-o, anybody home?”

Clear instantly straightened. Dimitri’s eyes blew wide in shock at Clear’s recognition of the voice, but before he could continue misunderstanding (or maybe furthering it), Clear stormed towards the front of the shop. Sure enough, waiting by the door was the white-haired demon, in a new tacky red getup with his claymore still strapped to his back. Dimitri followed him a moment later.

“How can we help you compete?” Clear asked quickly. He placed himself between Dimitri and Dante, scanning for a weapon nearby.

“Oh, yeah, the password. Uh, superiority and accumulation, was it?”

“You must be a friend of Clear’s,” Dimitri said, shrugging past his partner. He shot a sly little look over his shoulder as he did.

“What—D, he’s not a friend,” Clear hissed. He followed Dimitri to the front door, stumbling over freshly strewn-about spare parts until he tripped and had to catch himself on one of Dimitri’s shelves. Dante laughed— _laughed,_ the audacity—at him, tipping his head back as he did.

“Come on, Clear, we bonded last night!”

“We absolutely did not,” Clear grumbled as he righted himself. He toed over the rest of the scraps while Dante and Dimitri conversed. Damn it, he _just_ cleaned the walkway yesterday.

“What can I help you with?”

“A friend of mine left something here for maintenance, she asked me to pick it up.”

“Can I get her name?”

“Kalina Ann.”

“Oh, the lady! Right, let me get it for you.”

Dimitri made his way back over the scraps and materials on the floor to a maintenance shelf on the far left wall. Although he was still in clear view of the two hunters, he left his back turned to them. Clear shot a hard glare at the back of his head. Then, he turned back to Dante with a sigh.

“So. The lady’s a friend of yours, huh?” Clear asked.

“You know her?” Dante’s brows quirked up, so did the sides of his lips.

“We’ve crossed paths. Don’t lean on that.” He shooed the demon off the table by the door, where the broken gun-blade from the night before was sitting. Dante stood up and raised his hands, moving away to lean instead on the doorframe.

“You guys have a great place. Nice and spacious, do you do tours?”

Clear’s eyes narrowed a bit, and he crossed his arms. He glanced over at D, who was reclining leisurely near the gun Dante was supposed to pick up—motioning at him to talk more too, the betrayer. Clear turned back to Dante.

“Morning tours aren’t available.”

“Guess I gotta come visit later, don’t I!”

“You really don’t,” Clear said with a shake of his head. “I still don’t know if I can trust you, demon.”

“Well, I guess outside of our little scuffle last night, we really don’t know each other.” Dante shrugged his shoulders. He stood from the wall as he continued speaking, “but I’m starting to think we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other around.”

“So you took my advice!”

Dante chuckled at that. Clear still stood defensively; even though his lax attitude was probably meant to be soothing, Clear couldn’t help but be on edge. It was just… Unnerving. That it felt like Dante was actively trying to befriend him. Clear didn’t trust it at all.

“Well, it’s not entirely your fault. My broker started nagging me to ‘get off my lazy ass,’ in his words. ‘Sides, gotta take all the good jobs before those tourists run me out of business.”

So he and the lady were locals. She had thought Clear was from out of town when they first met, maybe that was why Dante had been looking for them. But most people had coming looking for Dimitri’s weapons, and then taken jobs in town to test them out as far as Clear knew, so…

“If you came here to wipe us off the map, I’m not gonna go down without a fight,” Clear hissed. He flicked Dante’s chest with two fingers, finding it a little hard to be intimidating when the demon was much taller and broader than him. Dante still put his hands up again, stepping away from Clear.

“I know from yesterday you don’t take to losing kindly. That’s not what I’m here for anyway, I wanted to ask—“

“Aaaand here she is! Kalina Ann, back to full functionality!” Dimitri interrupted, as if reading the sudden tension in the room. Clear crossed his arms again and leaned back on one of the shelves. His eyes were sharp as he watched their interaction.

“Wow, you work fast! You even made Lady a new blade, she’ll be touched!” Dante mused. Clear wasn’t sure if he was doing it on purpose, but he was demonstrating his inhuman strength. It was clear in the way that he lifted the gun and held it that it was light as a feather to him. Clear had watched Lady hoist it over her shoulder, he assumed it was quite heavy, and to see Dante practically hold it with one hand made Clear weary.

“Well, yanno, she did ask for a demonstration of services. So, shall we discuss payment?” Dimitri asked. His usual chipper tone did always shift to a little more sinister when he was talking about prices. Dante rubbed at his jaw with one hand.

“Do you take tabs?”

Dimitri and Clear shared a look with each other, then both looked back to Dante.

“I like my payment in full, but I’d consider it if you don’t mind interest,” Dimitri said. Clear’s brows shot up and he was next to him in a second, arm around his shoulders to pull him away.

“Hey, hey hey hey, woah, D, let’s talk about this,” Clear hissed as he leaned close so he could whisper while their backs were turned to Dante.

“That guy gave me these nasty little love-bites, you’re really gonna give him a weapon for free?”

“Well I mean, if you two are like _that_ , I don’t see why not.”

“D, no, it’s not—don’t hold that over me, I told you it was a fight.”

“Kinky.”

“Stop!”

Clear let out a frustrated grumble, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. Dimitri was chuckling at him, and if Clear didn’t love the guy so much he’d have probably thrown him to the floor.

“Anyway, he’s a demon,” Clear said. Dimitri’s eyes blew wide open. He looked over their shoulders then back to Clear.

“He’s… a full-fledged demon? Like the ones you kill?”

Clear nodded. Dimitri looked back again.

“But he said he’s friends Kalina Ann’s owner… He hasn’t even tried to attack us yet—he even told you he wasn’t gonna hurt us.”

“Thanks for listening in. I fought back in self-defense, D. Are you really gonna sell a weapon to a demon that tried to kill me?”

“You swung first!” Dante piped up. Dimitri gave Clear a partially surprised, partially scolding look, and tried to slip out from under his arm. Clear wouldn’t let him, keeping him in a loose headlock.

“D, I’m telling you, you don’t wanna trust this guy.”

“Oh, come on. The more we talk the worse your story gets! Besides, he’s friends with the lady, she’s human too.”

“I’m also on bad terms with her, you know that right?”

“You gotta start making friends and not enemies, Adr—Clear. I’ll worry about you if you’re a loner forever.”

“I don’t—D, this isn’t about me. It's about deciding if you're gonna trust something that hasn't really demonstrated trustworthiness.”

Dimitri sighed and started back to the door, pulling Clear with him for a couple steps. He gave his cheek a little pat and ducked out from under his arm.

“Clear seems to think that you’re untrustworthy. So I have a little proposition for you. How about you two do a job together? I’ve got a weapon to test, and you two can work out whatever happened yesterday. Depending on the results I’ll see what I can do about a discount.”

“What? You can’t just—You can’t sell my services like that!” Clear protested. Dimitri shushed him.

“You call me your boss, I can hire you when I want!”

“He’s got a point!” Dante interjected. He was leaning by the doorframe again but with arms crossed now, smirking at them both. He continued, “you drive a pretty hard bargain. But I’ll play along. If you hire me, your payment can be Kalina Ann’s repairs.”

“Like I said, we'll see when you get back. I'll just hold onto her here." Dimitri took the weapon back, which Dante easily handed over. He then disappeared again to his work bench; after a moment, he returned with Clear's knives and a morning star in his hand. He handed both over to Clear.

"The chain is extendable. Hold this trigger here, and when you let go it'll retract," Dimitri explained.

Clear grumbled under his breath as he slid his belt into place, strapping the sheath around his thigh. With the morning star in hand he shoved past Dante on the way out the door.

"Fine, if we're gonna work together on this, don't slow me down."

"Oh, come on—I'm sorry about him, he'll lighten up..." Dimitri said meekly. He tapped his fingers against his arm and chewed at his cheek. "He, uh... hopefully he won't take a stab at you."

"I can handle it." Dante shrugged dismissively and followed Clear out the door.

* * *

 

Clear was mildly surprised Dante wasn't immediately on his heels when he left. All the better for him, so he could get to the job and finish it before Dante even caught up to him. Maybe. They were supposed to go towards the outskirts of town to a 'party district' known for its clubs. Clear hadn't been to the area much, only showing up after dark when parties were in full swing and demons were running rampant. The streets were different in the daylight when there weren't incubi and succubi running amok.

Dimitri had texted Clear the information shortly after he'd left. It seemed that there was a bar who's basement had been overrun with some kind of weird bug demon that was tanking business; at first Clear assumed a Hell Hopper, but when he saw the place he knew the interior would be too small to fit one. The bar had a 'closed' sign on the door and the lights were dark, but it looked as though there were a couple apartments above it so the owner must have been around.

Before Clear could get too far looking, his tattoo started to pulse subtly. A demon was nearby... At the sound of footsteps behind him, Clear rolled his eyes. Damn, of course it wouldn't take too long for Dante to catch up. There went his plans.

“Alright then. D's not here, gonna rough me up a little where I can actually fight back?"

“That wasn’t what I was gonna—“

Clear didn’t even listen to what Dante had to say. In a flash he’d turned around, knife at the demon’s throat. Dante barely even backed up. He’d stopped in a way that put just enough space between the knife and his jugular to not cut him—Clear didn’t press forward either, not when Dante put his hands up in surrender.

“What more do you want from us, demon?"

“What, forgot my name already kid? And I thought I was supposed to be old,” Dante huffed. He glanced down slightly at the blade at his neck. “You know this won’t kill me.”

“What do you want?”

“I was lookin’ for a conversation, but I don’t mind giving you a fight either.”

There was that amused glint behind his icy eyes again. Clear weighed his options, and then, maybe against his better judgement, pulled the knife away from the demon’s throat. As Dante visibly relaxed and cracked some wise-ass comment, Clear kept the knife at his side.

“Say, Clear, was it? I’m not gonna try to kill you. Or your friend. I’m half-human, it isn’t in me to kill them.”

Clear rolled his eyes, although he couldn't help it if 'half-human' piqued his interest. He bit his tongue before he could ask more, instead saying, “Why would you offer a fight and then say that. Really puts me at ease.”

“A fight can be a spar, I can just incapacitate you again! How are those bruises doing, by the way?”

Clear huffed, but couldn’t stop himself from touching his neck anyway. Dante had probably overheard Dimitri teasing him back at the shop; great, now _neither of them_ would let him live it down, would they. Before Dante could say anything else, Clear just got on with the conversation.

“Well, you've been at this for at least two days, so I’m never going to escape your interrogation, am I,” Clear sighed.

“I do know where you work.”

“Really not helping me feel at ease about this. Alright Mr. Detective, shine the light in my face and ask away!”

“First thing’s first. Your knives. How did you get a Devil Arm?” Dante immediately asked. Clear had been sheathing said knives as Dante asked, but the mention of them—naming them that—made him look up. Pinching his brows together, he gave Dante a confused look.

“You knew just from looking at it?”

“Devil Arms give off a certain energy. I’m a collector, of sorts, so I’d know it anywhere.”

“So are you gonna ‘collect’ these from me then?”

“No way. Those belong to you, and judging by what Lady told me about your conversation a couple days ago, I don’t think you’re misusing them.”

“They’re not made for hurting anything but demons. I think I’m the only one who doesn’t get sick from touching them anyway.”

Dante raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. Clear shifted his weight a little, resting one hand on one of his knives.

“Get sick, what do you mean?”

“They’re… Poisonous, I think. At least, a doctor said it was poison. Dimitri did some mods on them, but he touched them once without gloves, it nearly killed him.”

“Poison, huh? What’s the name of them, anyway?”

Clear looked at his knives. “Tatzelwurm.”

"I think I've read about that kind of demon. It's a kind of cat-snake right? Breathes poison?"

"Yeah, that's the one." Clear snapped. He glanced at his blades again.

"Makes sense the blades would poison then. You've got a lot to learn about them, kid."

They lapsed into silence for a moment while Dante considered his next question. Clear glanced around the street to occupy his time, finding a break between the bar and what he assumed was a cheap restaurant that looked like it could be stairs up to the apartments. In the back of his head, he was starting to find this whole week more and more absurd as the minutes went on; the fact that killing demons _used_ to be the most strange part of his week was starting to become a novelty to him.

"Question two! How are you able to use Devil Arms, and can you use more than just Tatzelwurm?" Dante asked while throwing up two fingers. It made Clear raise his eyebrow. He was so... extra. 

"Why is it so weird I can use one, can’t everybody?”

Dante tilted his head back and barked a quick laugh. “No way! Only demons can use Devil Arms, why do you think Dimitri’s False Arms are so popular?”

“They’re good weapons, his reputation precedes him.”

“Yet how many hunters do you know that reliably do their job with just human weapons.”

It did make him think. He wasn’t there for a lot of transactions, but most of the ones he remembered involved some level of complaining about how useless guns were and how expensive bullets could be. Dimitri’s False Arms just made the job easier for people—but maybe, that wasn’t the only draw. He'd never really considered the exact reason why Dimitri's weapons were so effective anyway, he just knew that alchemy combining demon parts with human weapons made them significantly stronger.

"I guess you've got a point," Clear sighed. Then, "it's the only one I can use so far."

"So far?"

Before they could continue speaking, there was a rumble from under the ground beneath them, strong enough that it made the interior of the bar shake. They heard glasses clinking inside; if it weren't for the strange unnatural growling that came with it, they'd both have probably assumed it was an earthquake.

"Right, we do have a job to do," Dante said. Clear nodded. He looked towards the entryway behind Dante again. There was a woman coming out of it now, looking to be in her late twenties and undoubtedly shaken by the noise.

"Yeah. We'll focus on that... partner," Clear said. It was weird, but that's what they were for now.

* * *

 

Except for the fact that both of them ended up covered in demon snail guts and juices, their job went smoothly. Dante assured the woman who hired them that the bar was fine if not for a little damage to some stuff stored down there, and though she seemed annoyed with the smell she was more than anything grateful the snail was gone. Clear was glad to get out of there, he just wanted a shower ASAP.

He had to report his work with the morning star too, but that could wait. It had a little bit of a lag time on the release mechanism, and only seemed to work half the time, but Dimitri would probably quickly fix that. As for Dante... He had to discuss payment for Kalina Ann too.

Clear glanced up at the demon—well, half-demon as he now knew. Fighting along side Dante had been much different than fighting against him: where before he had seemed more restrained and focused, today his attacks were insanely flashy. Clear had found himself keeping his distance in case one of Dante's wide slashes got a little _too_ wide. And he'd been laughing and whooping the whole time. Clear supposed that healing like Dante did had it's perks, but it definitely seemed to make him more reckless. They'd both received no wounds but Clear wouldn't have been surprised if Dante had walked off another few stabs to the gut.

"Yanno, I think we should do that more often. You're not so bad in a fight!"

"Hah. This is a one-time thing."

"You'd really rather be competing with each other?"

Clear paused to think about it. He fiddled with Tatzelwurm with his free hand, the morning star draped loosely around his shoulders. It would get tiring after a while, and it wasn't like Dante had ever really taken jobs from them before—if anything, this was _his_ ploy to stay floating, more than something beneficial to Clear and Dimitri. But he had demonstrated his prowess in fighting multiple times, and both he _and_ Lady seemed annoyed with the out-of-towners... Maybe it could work better than Clear had initially thought.

"Yanno, ask Dimitri about it, so I can be less annoyed when he says yes," Clear finally said. He didn't want to agree but in the long run it would probably help out more than it would harm. Or, if Dante turned on them and actually managed to kill them, at lease Clear's final words could be 'I told you so.'

"You're a tough one, aren't'cha," Dante sighed, hands on his hips. In a more understanding tone, he said, "Well, can't fault you for not trusting a demon. But it wouldn't hurt to give it a chance, would it?"

"You're just looking for an easy way to get more jobs," Clear snapped.

"Guilty as charged," Dante laughed under his breath.

"Here, how about this: I'll go back to pick up Lady's gun, and call tomorrow morning. It'll give you some time to think."

"If I don't answer?"

"Then I'll know you're not up for it."

"Sounds like a fair enough deal."

"Well it's not a 'no!'"

"Don't push it," Clear hissed. They were getting back towards a more illuminated road, where slightly farther would take them back towards the beginning of the warehouses where Arms Race was situated. It was gonna be a long trip back, and a long next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been writing this on/off all day at work and I'm really really tired so please forgive any mistakes I'll edit this tomorrow sometime LOL;;
> 
> Edit: Aight sorry it's been a couple days but we edited now LOL;;


	5. Mission 5: The Call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Describing clothing is hard. I mention a 'jumpsuit' somewhere because I forgot the actual name of the garment I'm thinking of, it's the ones that you see construction workers and engineers and people always wearing. If you google just jumpsuit it only comes back with women's fashion, so I had to google 'jumpsuit construction' to get somewhere close LOL;;
> 
> Also!! We're officially 1/5th of the way through! Hopefully I can keep up the momentum, I'd love to actually finish a multi-chapter story for once!!!

Clear had just finished breakfast when the phone rang. Taking his time placing his dishes into the sink, he considered what Dante had said yesterday. The half-demon hadn’t implied any threat if Clear didn’t answer, and though he didn’t _want_ to agree with the feeling that Dante was being genuine about not planning on hurting them, he just couldn’t bring himself to trust him. He was a skilled fighter, sure, and was as annoyed with the out-of-town hunters as Clear was, and he’d seemed friendly enough when they’d talked before. He seemed to appreciate Dimitri’s modifications as well, and overall he’d systematically shot down every suspicion Clear initially had about him. It was hard to swallow his pride and admit Dante wasn’t a bad guy.

He’d talked it over with Dimitri the night before. He seemed more on-board with a business partnership, saying, “they can come in for weapons mods, and if we’re tight on mortgage then we can probably work out a deal!” Clear wasn’t sure if that’s how Dante and his associates worked since he had immediately asked for a tab, so maybe he planned to repay them in odd jobs instead of hard cash.

Clear didn’t like it. But he didn’t want to be pestered anymore, and Dimitri had expressed his disappointment if they didn’t agree. Disappointment wasn’t entirely the right word, it was partly that, but also… sadness? Clear knew him well enough that Dimitri would definitely be upset if such an interesting opportunity slipped through his fingers.

The phone was on it’s second to last ring. Against his better judgement, he shut off the water, and brought his mug with him to the phone to finish his tea while he took the call. With little hesitance he tucked the phone between his shoulder and his ear.

“This is Arms Race, how can we help you compete?”

“Devil May Cry, calling on business.”

“Ah, Dante. Password.”

“Do I have too?” Dante whined. Clear puffed out an annoyed breath.

“Business policy. Just get it over with.”

“Fine, fine. Superiority and Accumulation.”

“Wonderful. Thank you.”

Dante chuckled on his end, while Clear just tried to fight the nervous twist in his gut. He just kept telling himself, _it’s not a bad idea. Dimitri likes it. This is for Dimitri. You can play nice for his sake._

“So what made you change your mind?”

The sudden question reminded Clear he was on a call. He swallowed his tea. Swirling the mug in his hand absently, he gave his answer.

“Dimitri likes the idea. I’m not really all for it, but he’s the boss. What he says, goes.”

Clear was going to let them lapse into silence, but needing to sate his curiosity, he instead rushed to ask, “why do you keep pestering us anyway? About being your allies.”

Dante hummed to himself. There was the subtle squeak of leather and wood, as though he was shifting on a heavy chair in a room who’s floors were much older than he was. Clear found himself wondering what Devil May Cry looked like, as he’d never even heard of the shop until the day before.

“I like what I’ve seen of you two so far. Your friend is talented enough to make and modify Devil Arms, and you can use those Arms even if you’re a human. Besides, the more the merrier, right? Been a while since I had any new hires around here.”

“It’s not like I work for you now. We’re just partners.”

“Right, I’m getting ahead of myself here. Never really done this kind of thing before, how should we go about making this official?”

“Hell if I know!” Clear said, putting his tea down nearby. “Let’s just sign a paper or something! It doesn’t have to be more than an agreement.”

“If you say so! I look forward to working with you!”

Clear mumbled the words back. Well, there was no going back on it now. A small, dark part of him said that if he really was displeased, he could just attempt to kill Dante—the guy couldn’t survive a beheading, right?

He shook his head, enough thinking that way. He sipped his drink again. In the moment of silence, there was a faint sound from Dante’s end of the call, like a door opening, and then shifting of the phone. A muffled voice came from the other side. Clear knew he probably should be eavesdropping, but he couldn’t help it when the usually relaxed Dante seemed to suddenly be annoyed.

“What do you mean electricity’s going out, I just paid.”

More muffled noises. The voice, speaking, but too far for Clear to hear over Dante's shifting in his chair again. 

“That was the month before’s? Lady said she paid that!”

Laughing? Dante tsk’d, interrupting the noise.

“Damn it, whatever. Give me a job then.”

Clear’s eyebrows raised. This must be who Dante had mentioned yesterday, his broker. He slowly finished his tea as he listened in on the back and forth; he couldn’t get all the details but he could vaguely make out a location and number of demons. Definitely less than when he first met Lady, but it sounded like it was a group of more powerful ones.

Dante sighed. Clear heard the bang of the door closing, how old was the building to have such a heavy door? He went back to small talking, “got a job, huh?”

“Yeah. Closer to your area though. Wanna come?”

It was such a casually thrown-out invitation it managed to surprise Clear.

“Don’t you need the money?”

“Eh, we’ll discuss payment and whatever later. It can be our first official mission as partners.”

The doubt crept up in the back of his head again. Clear hummed in thought for a moment, stalling for time. Well, he did promise he’d do it for Dimitri, and he had nothing better to do today.

“Sure, why not,” he finally conceded. “Where am I meeting you?”

* * *

 

After Dimitri had finished breakfast, he’d run off to take a shower and change. Clear had generously done laundry for them again—it was so nice to have someone taking care of him like Clear did.

Their water heater was still pretty new, so Dimitri let himself soak for a little over a half hour before finally turning it off. He preferred it when his clothes were fresh and warm, but he wouldn’t complain if he wasn’t the one who did the load. Throwing on a soft shirt and one of his jumpsuits, he tied the garment around his waist before heading to his work bench.

Tasks for the day included finally repairing the gunblade Dante had broken, and making adjustments to the morning star from the previous day. Clear had told him that the chain only worked sometimes, and wouldn’t retract at others, so he’d definitely have to iron that out before the customer came to pick it up.

He’d heard Clear talking on the phone a bit while he was in the shower, and then leaving quickly after. He must have gotten a job, leaving the entire warehouse to Dimitri. Once he started working, he usually got lost in his jobs and forgot to do basic things like eating food, or going to the bathroom, but since it was an early morning job Clear would at least be back for dinner. Smiling to himself, he threw on one of his work playlists and immersed himself into his work.

Time passed quickly. When he finished repairs to the gunblade and checked the time, about an hour and a half had passed. Maybe it was a good time to take a break and stand up, walk around, get something to drink.

As he was heading towards the kitchen, the phone rang. He turned mid-step and made his way back to where the phone was situated, by one of the far shelves where he kept customer returns and items to sell. Slapping on his customer service voice, he answered.

“Hi, this is Arms Race! How can we help you compete?”

Silence greeted him. There was a mild static noise, but he couldn’t tell if it really was to the tempo of someone breathing or just his imagination. He called a hello into the phone again.

“We’ll skip the formalities, shall we?” The rich voice from the other end cut him off before he could ask for the password again. It was definitely a man’s voice, not too deep, and with a slight accent Dimitri couldn’t place.

“I’m going to hire you to build a weapon.”

“I—I can’t do that without the password—“

“Oh, come now, you have no choice! Shall I give you something else instead?”

Dimitri opened his mouth but was cut off again.

“Dimitri Ulysses, age twenty-one, born December seventeenth to single mother Ingrid Diomed. Only child, put up for adoption at age two and taken in by the lovely Eileen and Michael Ulysses, in a seaside town about a four day’s drive from your current residence. I must say, you really upgraded didn’t you! Your mother garden is incredible. I adore her hyacinths. And your father's church looks wonderful since it's been rebuilt. How did the stained glass survive Grendel's attack two years ago?”

“How—How do you know all of that—“

“Oh, simple. I did some personal research, and had some of my men visit your home. Unfortunately your parents were out so we couldn’t talk to them. Maybe next time I’ll ask to stay for tea!”

Dimitri found himself paralyzed. Chills had overtaken him, so much of what this man had just told him was information he’d never even told _Clear._ And to mention specifically his mother’s garden, the demon Clear had killed by name, even that he’d been there personally or had sent men in his place… This man had seen where his family lived, and knew where Dimitri himself lived, and probably knew an equal amount of information about Clear then too.

“Like I said, you have no choice, my friend. So, shall we discuss what I want?”

* * *

 

Clear dug his knife out of a Hell Hopper’s shoulder. When it wouldn’t easily come free, he ended up just stepping on the Hopper’s arm and ripping the out the blade. The arm fell away from the body as a result, blood soaking his already-soaked shoes. Ah well, that’s just how it went.

He glanced over his shoulder to Dante, seeing him flick his blade—Rebellion as Dante had called it—free of blood and return it to his back. They’d ended up traveling through the sewers again at some point, although they ended outside but definitely not where they started. When Clear checked the time on his phone, a solid four hours had passed.

With the demons dead and the adrenaline fading, Clear could feel the tiredness set in. His feet ached, especially one ankle he’d twisted. He’d gotten a few cuts here and there, but most of his body was covered in bruises. There were so many random purple splotches on just his arms alone that he was sure his abdomen and legs would look like mosaics. Dante, meanwhile, didn’t have a scratch on him, although his coat and vest had been torn on one side where he’d been stabbed by a Scissorhands. The rip in the jacket gave Clear something to shoot the breeze about while they headed back towards Arms Race.

“I should apologize for the other day, for tearing up your gaudy jacket.”

“Ahhh, don’t be sorry, it saw worse days. It was about time I got a new one anyway. Whaddya think?” Dante made a wide motion with both hands, indicating his outfit. Clear followed, although his eyebrows raised when he hit Dante’s shoes.

“Are you seriously asking me how I feel about your cowboy boots?”

“Found ‘em at a discount. Pretty slick, right?”

“... No.”

Dante gasped in mock-offense while placing a hand on his chest. “The scorn! I don’t make fun of your, what do you call them, moto-jeans?”

“Wh—they’re cool!”

“About as cool as my cowboy boots!”

“At least I don’t dress in a tacky full-red getup!”

“You just don’t know how to have fun!”

Dante was laughing at him again. Clear wanted to bicker more and defend his absolutely cool and tasteful sense of fashion, however his phone starting to buzz in his back pocket made him pause. It had been a while since he’d seen Dimitri’s number on the caller ID. Dante shushed as Clear answered.

“Hey, D, what’s up?”

“H-hey, Adrian—“

Clear’s eyes narrowed. He came to a stop to focus entirely on the call.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay, did something happen?”

“No.” A swallow. “No. Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure…? You can tell me.”

“I—I’m just a little weirded out, I’ll tell you later. I, uh, need a favor done.”

When Dimitri was nervous, _that_ was when he stuttered. And when his speech slowed down. Clear could practically hear him shaking through the phone. What the hell had happened? Clear felt so tense he was probably shaking too. He forced himself to keep an even tone.

“Yeah, sure. What do you need?”

Clear fished through his pockets for something to write on. In his jacket, he found the small notepad he usually kept on him, albeit in the wrong pocket, and two pens. One didn’t work so he chucked it over his shoulder into a trashcan he and Dante passed once they were outside.

“I need, uh, scissors. Three pairs. And Hell Hoppers, the chainsaw hands. And uh, a couple of small-fry, the Pack Rats will do. And uh, I don’t know where to find one, but it’s called a—a Bahamut. They like to hide in the sewers apparently.”

“Oh, kinda weird serpenty things with wings? We saw a couple. I’ve got Dante here, I’ll tell him and we’ll see what we can do.”

“Sounds good. Thanks. Hey, be safe. I’ll see you when you get home.”

“Yeah. You—You too, D. We’ll talk more over dinner.”

Clear hung up. He’d explain what the call was about later while they were gathering D’s supplies, but for now, they had another job. He showed Dante the notepad.

“My turn to drag you along. We get to be demon-parts Postmates.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I'm Chekov's Gunning this but in like, the least best way lmao I promise that if something is mentioned, I will do my best to bring it back up—or, I've done my best to plan it that way. It just might not immediately happen within the next couple chapters www oops.


	6. Mission 6: Shaky at Best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter as a meme: 
> 
> Clear: Hey-- 
> 
> Grendel: *snarling* 
> 
> Clear: *S c r EeC HES * GET yO FUCKIN DOG BITCH--
> 
> Dante: It don't bite. 
> 
> Clear: YES IT DO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally finishing this at two AM when I should have been asleep two hours ago... I think I'll try to color Grendel and Tatzelwurm tomorrow ^^ But for a quick ref, here's the link to the post I made with Grendel: 
> 
> https://dmctuesdayblog.tumblr.com/post/186128663652/mayocado-my-love-of-designing-weapons-will
> 
> Has some other weps that will show up later. I need to do a sketch for Dante and Dimitri as well, but I'm nooooot too sure about what I want Dante to wear yet. 
> 
> Anyway, this is getting quite out of hand, on with the chapter lol

Dante lunged forward, Rebellion poised for attack. Clear reacted quickly to parry but his reposte was also blocked. He pressed Dante as much as he could, although the other hunter was quick to throw him off off balance with a rough shove from his sword.

Clear stumbled back. The point of training with Dante was to get used to using more Devil Arms, especially heavier ones, but Clear still felt unsure of the longsword in his hands. Sure, it was lighter than Dante’s claymore, but it still felt unruly and off-balance. He was used to two tiny throwing knives as his primary weapons. A sword was something he hadn’t picked up since his old mentor had tried to make him a fencer.

Although using it backhanded had proved to be a little more familiar, the speed at which Clear struck was too slow for his liking. He’d spent a good chunk of the last few days just learning how to dodge and block again. And amidst all that, he hadn’t even gotten to learning how to harness the sword or Tatzelwurm’s latent powers.

It was frustrating to say the least. Dimitri had been clamming up and avoiding him more recently too. Probably a fair bit of what was slowing Clear down was the fact he was using these sparring sessions as an excuse to be out of the warehouse, and a way to take his anger out. Even if he accidentally cut Dante, the older hunter would almost instantly heal up. It felt kind of unfair to keep using him as a human stress ball but at least he put up more of a fight than any demon Clear had vanquished in the last week.

“Keep your head in the game!”

Dante brought Rebellion down for an attack from above. Clear dodged to the man’s left where he’d left an opening and slashed with his sword. Faster than Clear anticipated, Dante moved Rebellion in the way and blocked the strike. Clear disengaged instead, spinning away towards Dante’s back and slashing up. He found purchase under Dante’s arm with his blade and held himself there, chest heaving to catch a breath.

“One point to me. We’re even now.”

They disengaged. Clear looked to the sword in his hands—Grendel was its proper name—then stabbed it into the ground in front of him. He crouched down next to it. They were training outside of Devil May Cry so Dante moved to sit on the stairs with Rebellion leaning over his shoulder. Next to him laid his and Clear’s jackets, and two glasses of water. Clear’s was empty.

“Somethin’s bothering you, huh?” Dante asked. Clear grumbled, but that was all the answer he needed to give. Dante huffed softly under his breath, but it wasn’t annoyed or mocking.

“Yanno, we can always get to Devil Arms later, if you just wanna use sparring to relieve stress.”

“No! The point of all this is to learn how to use them. Otherwise I’m just wasting time.” _Wasting time from what, sulking with D? Christ._

“But getting impatient isn’t gonna do anything for you.” Dante leaned back on the top step and lifted Rebellion up into the air. The sun caught the blade in just the right way to reflect light into Clear’s eyes, making him blink and look away.

“Cool down. We’ll get back to it when you have a level head.”

“I am cool,” Clear grumbled instead. He stood and went to Dante’s side, clacking Grendel against Rebellion to stop Dante from _purposefully_ making the sun glint into his eyes, _the brat._

“Let’s go again. If I win two of three we’ll start.”

“Sure.” Dante shrugged. “Just don’t expect me to let you get to two easily.”

“Don’t think I won’t work for it,” Clear said. And then he swung Grendel down. He stopped it just before it sliced Dante clean in half.

“I won’t count that one.”

Dante tipped his head back to laugh. He made to move, holding out a hand to Clear for help up. Clear took it—only realizing too late that he did just start them counting, and Dante had said he wouldn’t go easy. His wrist was grabbed and he was thrown clean into the air. He had a split second before he hit the ground to realign himself. He barely managed to plant his feet before Dante was in his face.

Every slice and strike was more precise than before. Clear was forced instantly on the defensive. Dante kept backing him up with more jabs of his sword until he’d backed him into a wall. Clear slammed into it, the breath flying from his lungs. Rebellion was embedded into the wall by head head a second later, blocking his escape.

“One-Oh. Guess you don’t wanna learn huh.”

Clear snarled at him. Faster than he himself even expected, he slugged Dante across the jaw. Planting one foot against Dante’s chest, Clear kicked him away. Dante managed to tug Rebellion with him, but he was off balance already so it didn’t really matter. Tossing Grendel to his left hand Clear drew one of his knives and used that to move in. This time he put Dante on the defensive, but it was much easier to deal with him when he had one hand to guard and one hand to strike with.

Dante knocked Grendel away with a heavy swing of his blade. Even if Clear lost his grip on it, he could care less when he was able to grab both knives and charge forward. In the brief second before Dante could recover and block, even if Clear had used his last burst of demonic strength he’d borrowed from Dante earlier, he swept in and crossed both blades under Dante’s jaw.

Clear instantly backed away, sheathing one knife to gather Grendel again. He wasn’t about to be thrown a second time.

“One-one,” he said. Dante hummed. And then he charged.

Clear dodged with a roll as Dante cleared space between them. He slashed with Grendel towards Dante’s legs but his attack was easily jumped over. Dante went for a wide swing that Clear easily backed out of range of. Once he was a few paces back, he threw his knife to intercept Dante from charging again—that damn stinger attack of his was too convenient.

Dante stopped to knock the blade high into the air. Clear dove in this time with Grendel raised. He went for a feint to Dante’s shoulder, then stabbed low to his side. Dante parried successfully, and then, even with the limited space between them, went for a jab as well. They skid past each other so they were back to back. Clear heard the woosh of his knife falling through the air. Turning around, it took him a second to see where it was—closer to him, good—and he reached out to catch it. He tossed it to himself to reorient it; Dante took advantage of the pause to move in again with Trickster Style’s teleport. Even though Clear’s face showed signs of confusion, he’d already committed to throwing the knife.

It would have punctured just under Dante’s lung if he hadn’t caught it. Clear’s shock made him hesitate, making it easy for Dante to return the gesture from earlier. Holding the knife against Clear’s neck—nowhere close to cutting him of course—he clicked his tongue.

“Two-one, ouch. Come on, kid, you’re making this too easy—“

Clear snatched the knife out of Dante’s hand and pressed it against his stomach, just under his lung. Again, no where close to cutting, but the pressure behind the motion, the shaking Dante could feel through Clear’s entire arm, was telling of how much restraint he was showing.

“Enough. Damn it, just _teach me_ already,” Clear seethed.

The sun was starting to set. The shadows cast by Devil May Cry made Clear look more severe; and yet, they also showed how truly worn and stressed he was. Whatever was bothering him, just fighting it out wasn’t going to help. Dante sighed and pulled away. Clear made to follow, but paused when he returned Rebellion to his back.

“If you try to control a Devil Arm without a clear head, you’ll regret it,” Dante warned. Clear’s expression brightened just a bit, but he also seemed as though he was trying not to show that he was less than annoyed to finally be getting somewhere.

“What’s the worst one could do to me?”

“It might not react how you want. Devil Arms are the weaponized souls of devils, if you’re not strong enough to wield one…” Well, he hadn’t exactly encountered that issue before. But he knew that for a long time Rebellion wouldn’t even budge for him, but it hadn’t ever truly rejected him. All the arms he’d acquired reacted differently when he tried to best them; specifically, he remembered when Ifrit and Alastor had tried to kill him. If that happened, he was sure Clear could handle himself, but he still wanted to be cautious about it.

“I’ve been using Tatzelwurm just fine.”

“As knives, yeah. You told me it made Dimitri sick when he touched it, if it tests you and poisons you? If you’re not ready for that what are you gonna do?”

It was a hypothetical case, but it made Clear think just enough that Dante could get his point across. He wasn’t really sure the best way to explain it, but he tried.

“You have to make a Devil Arm work for you, not against you. Best it in battle and make it acknowledge your strength. That’s the fastest way to be able to use one. And since you’ve already bested Tatzelwurm and Grendel, you just need to make them respond.”

“Yeah and how do you  _do that_.”

“You just… Think about it. And they do it. That's what I do. Actually,” Dante paused, his eyes traveling to Clear’s tattoo. He could see more of it up his arms now, the intricate designs vanishing under his sleeves. It was quite a large piece, symmetrical on both sides, with the most prominent designs being matching alchemic circles on his forearms. Dante wondered if Dimitri had done it for him.

“Only your tattoo is demonic?”

“Huh? Yeah, why, is that relevant?”

“Maybe… I can kind of ‘hear’ a Devil Arm when I hold it. It’s not really a voice-voice but it’s more like a feeling that tells me what it can do. If you’re not hearing them, I guess I’d have to know what the abilities are to tell you—“

Clear handed over Grendel by the hilt. When Dante just looked at it, Clear nudged it at him again.

“Go on then. Show me what it can do.”

“Alright, alright, no need to be pushy.” Dante took the blade. It was so light compared to Rebellion, but somehow the balance seemed off. It was heavier towards the point of the blade, no wonder Clear was having such a hard time using it. He looked it over. The hilt was wrapped in a dark green leather that almost looked like it could be skin, with an orange-brown jewel at the end. Amber maybe. There were what looked to be the top jaws of two skulls biting the bottom of the blade and creating the guard. From there, there was a strange jagged pattern that went down the center of the blade.

Dante focused on the weapon in his hands. The feeling that came to him was mostly hunger, but once he was able to assert himself and look passed that, he figured out the way to use the weapon. Turning away from Clear, he swung the sword down in a short slice, commanding it to open about halfway through the motion.

Along the jagged design, the blade split in half and pulled open, revealing a row of serrated, yellowed teeth. Dante wasn’t sure if Clear had actually yelled in shock or if that was just Grendel bellowing. Or both. The sword gnashed at the air, snarling all the while, until Dante dug it into the ground next to him. It gouged up the cobblestone easily, sucking most of the debris it created into itself before reverting back to its former blade form. Even though the blade was more balanced towards the hilt now, Dante could understand what Grendel wanted. He thrust his arm forward, commanding it again. The sword opened its mouth upon command and spit out the wad of stones and cement at high velocity towards Devil May Cry’s wall.

The shot impacted the wall with enough force to make the building shake. He’d have to be sure everything was in its rightful place when he got back inside. Grendel reverted to its original shape. Dante couldn’t help guffawing at Clear’s baffled (and simultaneously terrified) expression as he handed the sword back.

“Now you know what it does.”

“I—y-yeah—I do,” Clear answered, looking down at the sword. He took it back cautiously, as if he was worried it would suddenly open in his hands without his consent. Dante could feel that it wanted to, and he willed it to calm down. Clear stared at it, then adjusted it to hold comfortably in one hand.

After a minute of silence, Dante prompted, “well? Gonna do anything?”

“I… I can’t…”

He sounded distant, but not entirely upset or disappointed. It was more like he was just accepting an outcome he’d already expected. He looked the sword over in his hands, holding it level with his eyes and squinting at it. Then, he dropped it with a little hiss and sheathed it.

“Stopping for today?” Dante asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah. It’s getting late, I better head back.”

Clear wrinkled his nose as he said it and turned away from Dante to gather his discarded jacket. He rested it over his shoulders and shoved his hands in his pockets, kicking at the dirt. The scowl hadn’t left his face.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Same time, I guess.”

“Sure,” Dante said. As Clear was walking off, he called to him before he got too far away to hear.

“We’ll spar to warm up. Let’s focus on mostly Devil Arms after that.”

“Stick to your plans, Dante.” Clear waved a hand back to him over his shoulder.

* * *

 

Clear stewed in simultaneous regret and rage all the way back to Arms Race. He was so pissed off with himself for not being able to understand his own weapons. Part of him wanted to be mad that Dante was shit at explaining things, but at the same time, Clear just wanted to blame _himself_ for not understanding. What did his tattoo have to do with it anyway, Dante never finished that thought. Maybe he’d ask tomorrow and get some conclusive answer.

He still had to go home to Dimitri avoiding him. They almost always ate at least breakfast together, but even that was starting to get scarce. Clear hadn’t really realized how much he enjoyed cooking for two people until he wasn’t doing it; the sappiness of it made him want to give himself a punch in the gut and a hug somehow at the same time. The fact that Dimitri suddenly started keeping secrets from him was also quite disconcerting—usually the guy wouldn’t ever hesitate to let Clear know that something was bothering him, but to suddenly be clamming up and avoiding him…

Clear shook his head. It had only been a week. He was basically in their parking lot now, he had to stop thinking about this. He had to put on a front and pretend he wasn’t bothered, because Dimitri would probably work through it and tell him eventually and they’d work this out—

A shadow in his peripheral caught his eye. Clear looked up to see two people exiting the shop; one man and one woman, both in suits with sun glasses. Definitely not the usual clientele. At first, they didn’t seem to notice him. But then he felt his tattoo pulse, and both of them in perfect synchrony looked directly at him.

He found himself stopping dead in his tracks. Chills raced up his spine. The interaction only lasted a few seconds and they were getting into their car and driving away before he could really process what it had all meant. Instead, before going directly inside, he stalled for time by doing a quick scan for demons around. It wouldn’t have been the first time he'd found some right outside their door, but he didn't find any so it must have been… He didn’t have an explanation for it. Just one more thing on his list of _‘Things Clear Doesn’t Have The Answers To.’_

Inside, he could hear Dimitri smithing in the back of the workshop. He’d been doing that a lot more too recently; Clear had gotten a couple of glimpses but he couldn’t really tell much outside of the weapon having a rather large blade. He’d probably have to test it eventually so he’d deal with it when the time came. Making his way to the back of the warehouse, he wasn’t surprised when Dimitri didn’t even seem to notice him.

Clear snuck a little peak at what was very clearly a scythe. He wanted to ask. He wasn’t sure if he even could.

He ended up standing at the base of the stairs for a while until Dimitri paused and startled upon seeing him. He fiddled with his mask in his hands and looked anywhere but Clear.

“Hey… Didn’t hear you come in…”

“I was being quiet, yeah.” _Ask about the suits._ “Did you…" _the suits!_ "Eat? Did you have dinner yet?”

Dimitri nodded his head yes. “Those leftovers from yesterday. They were good. Thanks.”

Clear nodded in response. Yet another day he’d be retreating to his room instead of eating with his roommate. Before he moved to go the top of the stairs, he said, “I’m gonna take a shower. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

When he came back down a few minutes later, Dimitri hadn’t started his work again. Rather, he was nibbling at the leftovers he _said_ he’d eaten, making Clear chuckle a little to himself. Oh, what would D do without him to remind him to finish his food.

“Hey, Adrian?”

“Huh?”

“I’m, uh… I’m sorry. For avoiding you.”

That wasn’t what he expected to hear. Anger was the first feeling that came to him, but he took a steadying breath to be sure literally any other emotion was what came through in his words. It ended up being bitterness, which was probably just as bad.

“If it’s something I did, you can just say it.”

“No! No, it’s definitely not you. It’s…” Dimitri trailed off. Clear let out a frustrated sigh.

“Look, do what you’re gonna do, finish this job or whatever, just don’t apologize to me unless you really mean it.”

Dimitri jumped up from his seat making Clear look at him. His expression was so pained; he looked like he was biting his cheek to bleeding.

“I do mean it! And I’m sorry that I can’t tell you more. I want to—“

“Then tell me! You’ve never had troubles with that before!”

“I know! Fuck, Adrian, look—If I tell you anything, they’ll—“

“Was it about those people in suits that just left?”

“You saw them? You weren’t supposed to.”

“Why? What’s even going on with you, D? Just tell me.”

“I—I can’t, okay? I really want to. I do. But I can’t—”

Clear let out a frustrated sigh and stormed to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him as he went.

* * *

 

It was keeping him up. Even though Clear had laid down to sleep around eleven PM, between the frustration and overthinking he’d been up for at least five hours. Partially because Dimitri was keeping him awake with his smithing until maybe one AM, and partially because his mind would _not_ shut the hell up.

With an aggravated sigh, Clear sat up. He threw on his jacket and zipped it to keep the cold off the bare skin of his torso, his legs covered by sweats. After putting on his shoes and gathering Tatzelwurm, he used his phone’s flashlight to make it to the front of the shop without incident.

Once outside, he took to practicing forms and acrobatics. Most of the aches and pains of practicing with Dante hadn’t gone away. His body was _screaming_ for a break by the time he finally paused to catch his breath.

Clear cursed to himself. Even if he was focusing all of his concentration on Tatzelwurm, he couldn’t ‘hear’ it like Dante had said. He could feel it, sure, the physical weight in his palm, but he couldn’t ‘feel’ its demonic properties.

Then, suddenly, as if clouds parting after a storm, he was reminded of that thought about his tattoo Dante hadn’t finished. Looking at the ink on his arms, Clear sheathed Tatzelwurm. Then, employing all the meditative techniques he knew, he focused on his tattoo like he’d been doing with his knives.

The tattoo pulsed against his skin. If he really focused on it, he could feel it in time to his heartbeat. That was new, but it wasn’t exactly finding a demonic ability. Maybe the tattoo didn’t have any powers to give him other than using Devil Arms. He was back to square one. The sky was starting to get bright too; if he’d figured out how to use at least one of the demonic weapons at his disposal, he could have gotten away with calling the day anything but a waste.

As he was heading back inside, his tattoo pulsed again. One hand flew to his knives, looking around from where he stood by the door. When he didn’t see anything, he tried to listen instead, but didn’t hear any further sounds. Still, his tattoo was pulsing more rapidly now—was that in time with his heart? Or just to alert him of a demon?—making him take another look.

Towards the end of their ‘block,’ parked outside a warehouse two or three doors down from them, a car he didn’t recognize was parked. If he squinted, he could see its window down. And inside…

A man in a suit, with sunglasses.

The window rolled up but the car didn’t move. Clear debated trying to fight the guy, maybe he’d get some actual information, but at the thought of it his tattoo seemed to scream against that. The shock of it made him yank his hands off anything he was touching. He’d never seen the tattoo color red all the way down to his palms before, not since he…

When he looked up again, the car had disappeared. He hesitated a moment longer, then quickly made his way inside to lock the door. What the hell had D gotten himself into…?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seeing as I finished this at 2 AM it feels kind of all over the place to me. If I edit this tomorrow I'll do a drinking game depending on what I change and how I change it. But drinking water of course, it's HOT in Texas LOL 
> 
> Edit: Sorry it took me so long to edit this chapter and the next one, I was surprisingly busy the last couple of days!


	7. Mission 7: Can't Handle The Heat?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to base Biscione off American Eels, which are freshwater found in more tropical areas of the states like Florida. Hence, why her powers are all hot water based, and why she lives in a lake. Mostly the insp came from these videos that keep showing up on my dash of all these weird black eels that live in shallow water, I have no idea what they are so American Eels were my closest guess (I was excluding saltwater eels though, for reasons you'll see later in like chap 15 :3c)

“Hey, Clear?”

He grumbled and rolled over.

“Mrgh, what time is it…?”

“Past noon. You’re never asleep this long, you okay?” D asked through the door.

“Make yourself breakfast,” Clear mumbled back.

A second later the door opened. Clear was already curled into his blankets so the light barely penetrated his field of view. D closed the door before coming to sit against the side of his bed. It was the first time in weeks Dimitri had done this, and the first time in days he seemed interested in an extended conversation. Any annoyance Clear was holding instantly deflated.

“How late were you up last night?”

“Dunno. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Dante’s workin’ you hard, huh. How’s the training going?”

Clear rolled over to face him. He lazily let his arm flop over the side of the bed, letting Dimitri take his wrist and trace over the lines of his tattoo. Even though he couldn’t see them, he’d done enough upkeep on it to know where each line was placed.

“It’s alright. ‘M gettin’ the hang of it. There’s just this one thing…”

Clear did his best to explain what he’d been thinking about the night before, and what Dante said to him. About how he could ‘make the tattoo work for him’ and how it could probably be unlocked as a Devil Arm itself. He told Dimitri about feeling his heartbeat syncing up in time with the pulsing, and how after it seemed like if a demon even breathed in his direction he’d feel it. It wasn’t just the powerful ones anymore. He’d have to get used to it.

“Idunno, he made it sound so easy but it felt so complicated.”

“I wonder if by ‘working for you’ he meant like… when it takes blood and gives you a boost, you only have a limited time, right? Cuz it feeds off that energy you give it? Maybe it’s not a matter of stifling it’s cravings, but more like when it digests, instead of the tattoo alone using the energy you have to use the energy…”

Dimitri trailed off. His finger traced over the mark at the top of the star, a demonic symbol meaning blood. The directional arrow that surrounded part of the star, including that mark, denoted that every reaction would be applied as a force towards Clear. Clear sighed instead.

“I feel like it’s more complicated than that. The tattoo is skin-deep, it doesn’t even make me partially demon when I use its power. I probably can’t…”

“You’re making it seem too complicated. It’s like alchemy, you just tell the energy where to go and it goes. Sometimes things go wrong but as long as your array is correct there’s no way anything will get out of hand.” Dimitri traced the directional arrow.

“That line means that everything is applied to you. You just gotta apply it deeper than skin.”

Clear considered it for a moment. Dimitri made it sound so easy, but then again, so had Dante, and they were both more seasoned in things like this. Well, if he could figure out how to use Devil Arms, he could probably figure out how to truly harness his tattoo’s energy. Or, maybe it was the other way around…?

Dimitri’s stomach growled. His hands didn’t retreat from Clear’s arm, instead gripping him tighter to start pulling him out of bed.

“Well, you can figure out how to be the stomach once you feed me! I didn’t finish dinner last night I was so caught up in working!”

Clear allowed himself to be partially pulled out of the warmth of his covers, but stopped letting Dimitri drag him when he could set his feet on the floor. His arm was released so he could stretch and find a shirt to throw on before he was pushed towards their tiny kitchen.

“Jeez, you need to set some alarms or something. Alright, alright, what do you want to eat?”

* * *

 

“Knock knock~”

Lady’s voice echoed from the front of the shop. Clear and Dimitri glanced up from their separate tasks to where she’d come in. They glanced at each other, then Clear hopped off his stool and waved to Dimitri that he could keep working. He toed over to the much cleaner front of house where Lady was waiting with Dante and one other woman.

“Afternoon. Need any help?” Clear asked.

“We got a job. Three of us are more than enough to handle it, but Dante wanted to know if you’d wanna tag along,” Lady said, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder to the other hunter.

“Wanted me to come, huh? I’m flattered,” Clear said, shooting a look to the half-demon. “Yeah, sure. I could use a little practice ‘harnessing my tattoo’ and whatnot. Give me a minute to get ready.”

He turned away from them and hurried back towards his room to get his jacket. As he passed by Dimitri’s work desk, he seemed to be reabsorbed in his work again. As Clear got closer, he could see that some papers had been shifted under whatever weird staff he was working on; there were alchemic circles on the pages, ones he’d never seen before.

“Yo, D.”

Dimitri easily hid his jump and turned to face him.

“You’re going out?”

“Yeah. A little mission. Need anything?”

“I think I’ll be okay. I can call you if I change my mind.”

Dimitri had slapped an easy smile on his face. Against all better judgement, Clear forced himself to buy it. They were talking again. They’d eaten breakfast together. Things were getting better, whatever was bothering Dimitri was starting to fade. Or, he just kept telling himself that. Clear smiled back and ruffled his friend’s hair.

“Don’t blow anything up while I’m gone,” he said. Dimitri swatted his hands away.

“Never! I’ll… see you guys when you get back, okay?”

The tiny waver in his voice was almost impossible to catch to the untrained, but Clear _knew_ D. _Knew_ that he was trying to hide he was shaking with how he crossed his arms. He was tense. Too tense. But what he’d said before, “you can’t ask,” just made Clear bite back a click of his tongue. They were fine. Dimitri would tell him after the job was done.

“Yeah. Be safe, D. Call me if anything happens.”

Dimitri waved him off. Clear was ready a few minutes later, with Grendel sheathed at across his back and Tatzelwurm at his side. He brought a gun with him too, his carbine shotgun he’d given to Dimitri for some tune ups a couple weeks ago. They’d been done for a while, Clear had just been testing a bunch of other guns so he hadn’t had a need to use it. Well, he probably wouldn’t need it with Lady as backup, but he needed some practice so it couldn’t hurt to have.

* * *

 

Lady and the other woman, Trish, rode one motorcycle while Clear rode with Dante. The job was almost two hours out of town inland: a road by a lake there had been blocked by some kind of strange fog and multiple cars and even trucks that had driven through it had completely disappeared. The fog seemed to be coming from the lake. Assuming it was demons, a local gas station owner called them in.

Clear had been through the area before when he was taking jobs out of town earlier on in his career, but it had been a while. He didn’t remember the lake being so dark though; and it wasn’t the fog, not when they had been driving under clear blue mid-afternoon skies. The trees around seemed less lush as well, like they’d been dried out, but only near where the fog started. Strangely the air seemed hotter by the fog when they pulled to a stop a little ways away.

“We should go on by foot,” Trish said as Lady stopped and turned off the vehicle. The two women got off Lady’s bike and readjusted their weapons. Clear was almost jealous that neither seemed to sport messy helmet hair at all.

He and Dante followed suit. Clear retied his ponytail while Dante locked his motorcycle up. Then, the group turned towards the fog. Clear’s tattoo was pulsing in response to it, in time with the rippling of the water next to them.

“It’s a demon all right,” Dante said matter-of-factly.

“What kind are you thinking?” Clear asked.

“We’ll find out when we get there!” Lady said, shooting them both a grin. She and Trish were already advancing into the fog fearlessly.

“Come on, we’d better stick together,” Trish called to them with a wave. Not wanting to lose sight of them or get separated, Clear and Dante followed suit.

It was burning inside the fog. Clear took off his jacket up in some desperate attempt to chase the heat away, but even then he was still sweating bullets. Even Lady had taken off her jacket, though it already had barely covered her midriff. Maybe it was because they were demons—well, maybe just Trish, Dante had taken off his coat as well— it didn’t seem like they were affected by the heat at all. The two women walked ahead of he and Dante; their teasing of each other helped Clear keep them in his line of senses. Still, the sweltering heat made him quite drowsy. He felt like each step lagged more than the last, and breathing was so difficult he felt himself gasping for breath quite a few times. The longer they walked in the heat, the slower Trish and Lady’s talking got, until they weren’t saying anything at all.

“Hey, Trish. Why don’t we stop for a second,” Dante called. They’d come to a small clearing in the thick fog by a railing blocking the edge of the lake from the road. The air was a little cooler thanks to the moving water. Through the haze, they could see some of the stopped cars and trucks; one of the trucks was overturned near a car that looked like it had been rammed from behind. The drivers must have been forced to stop here, if they didn’t stop of their own accord.

“Sounds good. How are you two doing?” she asked, directed towards Clear and Lady. Clear forced himself to nod. Even his tattoo’s pulsing had slowed.

“I think the demon’s in the water. Something’s tugging me to go to it…” Lady explained vaguely.

“Me too…” Clear murmured. He willed himself not to look at the water; if it weren’t for Trish’s hand around Lady’s waist and Dante putting an arm in front of him when he tried to move, they both probably would have dove straight into it.

Before they could delegate tasks, the surface of the water broke violently. Water sprayed everywhere, scattering some of the fog and soaking most of them. It was a moment of cool reprieve, but then the little droplets heated up to boiling and Clear was scrambling to dry himself off. Lady and Trish were doing the same where the water hit their skin, but Dante, of course, was already healing from the damage.

When the fog cleared a bit, they were able to see what rose out of the water. The base of the demon’s body was very clearly an old ceramic bust of a woman, although her arms and head were missing. Instead, the limbs had been recreated by the dark lake water—inside the head where the brain would be was a swirling mass of black eels, some peaking out and hanging around the demon’s shoulders to form hair. The rest of the body was supported by water and more eels, though these were much larger in size and were definitely not normal. The four that rose from the water had ruby-red eyes to match a jewel inlaid in the center of the demon’s chest.

Three of four eels dove at them. Trish pulled Lady out of range, sending a blast of electricity along the demon’s skin. Clear, still panicked from the boiling water, managed to jump away from them to a better vantage point. Dante dove out of the way as well, and the group all drew their guns in almost perfect unison to defend themselves.

“How kind of you to bring Biscione sacrifices!” the demon warbled. Her voice was hard to understand, like she was speaking from underwater up to them.

“Biscione? That’s your name, huh?” Dante asked.

“You’d be wise to remember it, son of Sparda!”

The eels whipped at them again. Dante fired at one, taking out one of it’s eyes to make it retreat, but another quickly came at him. Trish blasted another with her electricity again as it came towards her and Lady, although that didn’t seem to slow it. She picked the other woman up and hopped back out of the way, landing on top of the overturned truck to get Lady a better vantage point to fire from.

Clear provided support with his carbine as best he could. Dimitri’s mods to the magazine made it possible for him to not have to reload, as long as he gave each shot ample time to charge up with demonic energy in between. The eels were large enough that their hides were easy to hit, but aiming for the eyes seemed to be more of a challenge. One dove at him, maw wide open. He rolled away so it skid along the ground and got its teeth lodged around a car wheel. Before it could pull itself free, he yanked one of his knives out and stabbed it into the eye.

At that same time, Lady blasted one straight in the mouth, while Trish shocked it internally. Biscione shrieked and recalled all of her eels to her, and for a moment it looked like she was going to retreat into the water. Instead, she raised up her watery hands and summoned what looked to be an eel of water around her. This one, like her hair, was filled with a large amount of squirming, wriggling eels where its eyes would be, giving them something very clear to aim for.

“Trish, this one’s all you!” Dante yelled as he was backpedaling out of the way. Trish gave a yell of affirmation and charged up another intense bolt of lightning. Her aim was precise, landing exactly in the eel’s mouth when it opened it.

At first it seemed like the hit was solid enough. But over the sound of the cracking electricity Clear could barely hear Biscione laughing. The eel exploded not into water vapor, and not before the electricity even touched Biscione or the lake. Instead, the remains of the single large eel became an impossible amount of little tiny ones. The demon pointed her hands towards the group and commanded the electric-charged water towards them directly. Dante was the first one hit by a wave of little eels, a short yelp tearing from his throat at the shock. Trish was hit next, although her own electricity couldn’t hurt her; she still static shocked Lady while pulling her down behind the truck. Clear leapt behind the car he was near as well, cursing to himself. The sweltering heat was closing in on him again, and his rough breathing was starting to interfere with his shooting. At this rate, he’d shoot Dante in the back before he managed to do any real damage.

Peaking out from behind the car, Clear surveyed their enemy. Dante had recovered and was fighting off two eels while Biscione laughed at him. It seemed if they did enough damage to them, they’d be able to push the eels back enough for an opening. It seemed like an easy enough plan, but how would they deal about the main body… Well, they hadn’t hit the gem in the center of her chest yet, so that seemed like a good enough place to try aiming.

There was a boom somewhere off to Dante’s left. Clearly Lady had made it back into the fray and was doing her part. Damn it, he couldn’t be this useless with them. Swinging his carbine back onto his back, he made to grab Tatzelwurm, but paused. He considered what the other hunter and Dimitri had said to him for a moment, his hand inching towards Grendel instead.

‘It’s just like Alchemy, you tell the energy where to go and it goes there.’

‘You have to make a Devil Arm work for you, not against you. Best it in battle and make it acknowledge your strength.’

It still seemed complicated. But he’d done something with his tattoo last night, and that just put him one step closer to figuring out other Devil Arms. Well, if he was useless, at least he’d have an excuse of ‘I was trying something, sorry.’

Clear launched himself back over the roof of the car with a shout to draw attention to himself. Biscione flicked her hand towards him without looking away from Dante, and one of her eels charged directly to him. Drawing Grendel, he lunged towards the eel with the sword in front of him. Just like the night before, he focused on his tattoo to draw its power to him. But then, instead of using it for himself like Dante had suggested, he pushed it towards Grendel’s energy in his palm instead. The sword responded to him easily. Its mouth opened and encompassed the head of the entire eel, biting it clean in half.

Biscione screeched in mixed shock and pain. All of her eels returned to her side, where she summoned the big one made of water again. Exerting his own demon over Grendel was easy when Clear did as Dimitri said and told the energy where to go. Without even having to say it, Grendel opened its mouth and spit out the head of the eel directly at Biscione.

“Aim for the gem on her chest!” Clear yelled when the watery eel exploded back towards its master. Although he dropped to his knees at the sudden fatigue that hit him, at least he relayed the information to the group. There was a solid minute of gunshots and watery screaming that made his ears ring. Biscione was splashing up boiling water every which way and commanding it to hit them. Luckily she missed most of the time, but the one time she didn’t she managed to slash some over Clear’s knuckles and make him let go of Grendel. She didn’t go down without a fight—it took a well-timed, well-aimed shot from Dante and Lady together to finally shatter the gem and destroy her.

Her body splashed back into the lake with a final shout. The four larger eels floated up to the surface while all of the little tiny ones seemed to swim away. The surface of the water was no longer black by the time the fog cleared. Clear’s skin was so clammy he realized that it might have actually been steam surrounding them, which would explain the ridiculous heat. Biscione’s bust was floating at the top of the water too, crumbling to sand along with the eels around her, but not before a bright reddish glowing orb emerged from her chest to float above her body.

Clear hadn’t seen a Devil Arm form since he’d received Grendel. The orb floated towards Dante’s outstretched hand; then, in a flash, materialized into a dark colored whip with red material wrapped around the handle and fall hitch. Without even hesitating, Dante whooped and whipped at the ground. The pop! of the whip was masqueraded by the explosion it made.

Clear had to cover his face from the heat that wafted off of it. His hand was shaking where he’d been burned. And with the steam no longer surrounding them he found himself able to breathe easily again. He was so tired, it felt like he’d exerted more energy than he even had to control Grendel. He didn’t even register knocking the blade over as he collapsed to the ground. Sleeping seemed like a great idea right then.

* * *

 

Dimitri gave a little clap for himself once he’d completed the pair of circles. If he’d constructed them right, then it should go over smoothly; but, maybe he should have had more apprehension about the whole process. What if he died? What if the circle took more than he wanted to give? He’d already drained so much of his blood over the past couple days, and even that was barely enough to finish the smaller of the two circles he needed. He couldn’t let the weapon take any more than half of his soul in addition to that amount of blood. 

Steeling himself, he placed his palms on the ground next to him and began focusing his energy into the circle. He felt it as it flowed around the circles and the intricate chalk-and-blood markings he’d made, directing energy and elements into the scythe to complete it’s binding.

When it started drawing from him personally it almost knocked him out of his line of thought, but his palms on the cold ground kept him tethered. He just needed to allow his own energy to be swept away, and make sure that only as much as he wanted to give flew out of him.

Cracking his eyes open, he watched the scythe begin to shake. As the demonic parts bound to the inorganic, he heard it start to ask for more. They always did this, but he never let himself give in. This time, however…

He looked at the circle he was sitting in, hoping that his own blood as a medium was enough to encourage what the scythe wanted to leave his body. He was prepared for it to hurt. He had come to terms with losing that part of himself. As his chest constricted and he felt part of his soul being dragged out of him, swept along the circle and ingrained into the scythe, he just kept repeating that it would be okay.


	8. Mission 8: Scythe to Meet You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eeek I wanted this to be out three days ago and then got roped into watching Gotham with my dad so lol Sorry about that wwwww It's kind of a mess but I'll come back and edit it later, I wanna post another chapter by tomorrow hopefully.

“Hey, kid. You awake?”

Clear slowly awoke to the sound of Dante’s voice. He struggled to open his eyes, his body still felt so sluggish. Where was he even, if not back at Arms Race…

Right. They were by a lake for a job. And he’d used Grendel and then passed out. And now…

All three hunters we kneeling by him. Lady looked like she was trying not to smirk, but it was clear how badly she wanted to tease him by the look in her eyes. He tried to wave a hand at her but could barely manage to lift his arm.

“Kinda,” Clear grumbled. His voice came out raspy. Dante chuckled at him.

“I saw you use Grendel. What happened there?”

Dante helped him sit up while he tried his best to speak. “Figured out what you were talkin’ about yesterday. My tat’s a Devil Arm too, might as well use it like one.”

“I thought you said it was what gave you power. Never heard of a Devil Arm using a Devil Arm.”

“Well, you never heard of a human usin’ a Devil Arm either, so we’re all about firsts here.”

“I guess we are,” Dante said with a little chuckle. After a few minutes more of struggling to stand, he was helped towards the motorcycle.

“Are you going to be alright riding back like that?” Trish asked. She was already on the back of Lady’s bike, the other woman with her helmet on and sitting in front of her. She started the engine to let it warm up.

“I’ll manage,” Clear mumbled. He was still so tired and his body felt so heavy. He’d never been this out of energy before. Damn, he had some serious work to do with Dante when they got back.

“I’ll keep an eye on ‘im. If we lag back don’t wait up for us,” Dante called to them instead. Lady just gave a nod in response. Trish wrapped her hands tight around the other woman’s waist and a moment later they were off towards the city.

“Hold on tight,” Dante said. Clear was leaning heavily against his back with his eyes closed, about to sleep again, but he did his best to lock his hands around Dante’s waist so he didn’t fall off. Rebellion was digging into his chest and shoulder uncomfortably but he couldn’t care less when Dante’s shoulder was just the most soft, comfy pillow.

“I’ll try…” he yawned.

The ride back was probably twice as long as it needed to be, but Clear was so in and out of sleep he didn’t even notice.

* * *

 

Clear woke up on Arms Race’s couch the next morning to something burning. Even though Dimitri might have actually started a fire and they were about to lose their business, the soreness in his body kept him from really caring. With a mighty stretch of his back, Clear stood up and headed towards their kitchen.

Sure enough, Dimitri had failed to scramble eggs. The remains were so charred onto the pan that it would probably be easier to just throw away than to clean. Clear sniffed the air; ah, so it was melted cheese that did it. At least the stove was turned off. Dimitri wasn’t so abysmal in the kitchen to forget to do that.

Determining that they weren’t in life-threatening danger, Clear took the chance to go back to his room and gather fresh clothes for a shower. Now that he’d slept in his sweaty clothing from yesterday, he was looking forward to fresh pajamas and his own soft, warm bed. Perfecting his use of Devil Arms could come after he’d properly slept off all the soreness.

He knew it was time to get out of the shower when he almost fell asleep again in it. And though he wanted to go back upstairs and crash immediately, his stomach was arguing with him that eating was more important. Well, hopefully he didn’t burn something—namely himself—if he fell asleep at the stove.

“You’re up!” Dimitri greeted as Clear exited the bathroom with another yawn. He gave D a tired wave.

“Yeah, gonna eat. Do we have another pan?”

“We’re, uh, gonna have to buy a new one. Sorry…”

“Figures. Don’t worry about it. Anything you want?”

Dimitri chuckled at him. He seemed tired too, with bags under his eyes and his skin somehow paler than usual. Maybe a brush with death over fried eggs could do that to a person; Clear couldn’t relate.

“You still seem tired. Anything simple is fine.”

“Mom’s pasta it is.”

His mother’s spaghetti with meat sauce recipe was so simple to Clear it was almost like breathing. She had tricks for doing it from scratch, noodles and all, and also a much simpler version she used to make when she was home late from work and just really wanted to eat something quick. Tomato paste, seasonings, meat, water, and balsamic vinegar in one pan, with a little bit of water and tossed with the noodles. It was maybe a fifteen minute recipe at most, and perfect for Clear to eat before finally getting some rest.

Dimitri set the table for them. Clear gave them their food and the two sat down to eat. They were both silent and slow. If Clear really paid attention, he could see Dimitri fidgeting like he wanted to say something. Clear thought about ask, but in light of the other day and how tired he was, he couldn’t really bring himself to. If he couldn’t focus on a conversation it wouldn’t do to try and weasel information, or another fight, out of Dimitri.

After breakfast? Lunch? What time even was it? Clear put the dishes into the sink to do later and retreated to his room. Dimitri hadn’t moved from the table and was still fidgeting, making Clear pause at the base of the stairs. Their eyes met. Oddly, Dimitri looked away first without so much as opening his mouth. Clear took that to mean he wasn’t ready to talk either, and went immediately to his room to keep sleeping.

* * *

 

“Alright! Enough slacking!” Clear said while stretching. He was gathering his weapons from the racks to the left of the entrance. It was a little closed-off space where Dimitri kept his projects and customer returns, which doubled as weapons storage for Clear. Strapping Tatzelwurm to his thigh and Grendel to his back, he adjusted his jacket and headed towards the door of the shop.

“D! I’m goin’ to Dante’s, call me if you need anything!”

“Wait, I do need something!”

Clear’s hand stopped on the door. He turned and headed back to the center of the warehouse where Dimitri had been doing the final tune-ups on the scythe he created. Clear had only seen the completed weapon that morning, he wondered why it hadn’t dawned on him earlier that the blade he’d seen Dimitri making the week before was a scythe’s blade. Still, it was so… Weird.

Even though it was undeniably Dimitri’s work, the demon parts stretched over the neck of the blade and the top of the staff seemed to overtake that aesthetic. Where as usually Dimitri’s work was a mesh of his own welding and other demon parts, or he’d simply alchemied the demons into submission, the scythe looked as though it was doing the exact opposite. The blade was recreated and new polished from a Scissorhands’ weapon, so it was still dark metal but it now gleamed in the light. However, the staff and blade seemed to be held together by a mass of orange hands, a large vacant green eye resting in the center. The bone and metal counter-weights were definitely Dimitri’s work but it looked like they were being absorbed by the orange muscles. The beaded tassel Dimitri usually tied to his weapons was present towards the end of the staff, but seeing it in orange felt like some strange mockery. Sure he colored it to match the rest of the weapon, but it made it feel like he’d done a collaboration with someone who just wanted his name on it to sell for a high price.

“I… You were given permission by the… buyer? To test it out…” Dimitri explained while trying to lift it. He was clearly straining, grunts interrupting his speaking, but he managed to get it off the table and hand it off to Clear. The exchange was fumbled by Clear not expecting the weight of it, and Dimitri jumped back to avoid getting his toe crushed when Clear barely managed to catch it.

“What the hell, is it supposed to be this heavy?” he asked immediately.

“It’s, uh… Honestly no, but I was struggling to make it lighter, so…”

Clear strained to lift it. If he got some momentum behind his swings, the scythe could be an absolutely lethal blunt-force weapon; he could home-run bat some demon’s head right off its shoulders, assuming he could lift the scythe that high. He didn’t recognize any of the demonic parts used either—except for the scissors he’d collected and maybe some Hell Hopper bones, there wasn’t anything he’d grabbed from the other day. He wondered to himself what the abilities of the weapon were, since nothing spoke to him immediately. It was strange though, how he didn’t feel his tattoo pulsing at all.

“So, does it have a name?”

“Oh. Yeah. It’s, uh…” D chewed at his cheek, a nervous habit Clear had watched him do one too many times. Clear inclined his head, about to ask why D seemed to be so shaky—

“Mundus.”

“Huh?”

“Mundus. Cereris. The full name of it. That’s what the client wanted it called. _Gate to the underworld._ ”

Clear looked down at the scythe by his side. It was clearly demonic, so why wasn’t his tattoo pulsing as it had gotten so used to doing around demons? Maybe it finally decided to calm down, or maybe it was because the demonic parts were dead. As he was thinking that, he also couldn’t help but feel like the eye was staring at him. Sizing him up.

“Creepy name,” Clear finally said with a click of his tongue. He looked up at his business partner.

“I’ll do what I can with it, but unless this thing is made for Dante I’m pretty sure you’ve gotta make it lighter.”

“It’s— Yeah, it’s made for Dante,” D laughed a little. Nervous. Clear clicked his tongue again.

“Did he even pay you back for Lady’s gun? D, the fuck, you better charge him double, this thing must cost more than everything you’ve made in the last year combined.”

“I’m getting paid for it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. It’ll keep us floating. It’ll pay the rest of our mortgage in full too.”

Clear wanted to press him on his weird choice of words. He managed to lift the scythe over his shoulder, the soreness he thought he’d slept off coming back tenfold. His body was already aching from the strain of even _holding_ it. He tried to focus on it and reach out to it’s demonic half to see what it would do, but it somehow seemed to get heavier. What kind of powers did this thing have to make it do that when he tapped into it? Then again, Dante had mentioned that some demon weapons might fight him until he established he was their master, so maybe Mundus Cereris was just testing him.

“You know those ruins out of town, to the west? There’s a hoard there that needs to be taken care of,” Dimitri told him. He was giving Clear a worried look, or maybe it was more directed towards the scythe itself.

“You can take the van.”

“Gonna need it to transport this thing. Finish up the leftovers for dinner, I might be back late.”

* * *

 

What the city called ‘ruins’ was an old abandoned military base of some sorts that had fallen into disrepair with disuse and age. Many of the buildings were tilted due to rotting bases and one to many storms. Others had been caved in by repeated battles: other hunters and mercenaries often used the site to test weapons or simply kill prey. Due to the seclusion and general lack of security it was quite a popular spot. And oddly it was completely quiet when Clear got there.

He struggled to remove the scythe from the van. Even though he could walk with it, he was trudging along at a snail’s pace. There was no way he could fight well with this thing. In the silence it was easy to pick out one building where quite a few demons had gathered. But it was strange that he’d had to use his other senses to discern where they were, his tattoo still wasn’t responding to him at all.

As soon as he stepped within a few meters of the warehouse, one of the walls suddenly caved outward. A boiling red Hell Hopper, slashing arms raised, shrieked over the noise of a large group of other demons rushing out behind it. It had the same bird mask as that other weird wispy demon Clear had seen before. And it wasn’t the only one. Some of the Pack Rats, a couple Bahamuts, even a pair of Scissorhands had been possessed. He distinctly remembered that whatever the demon’s possession did made them faster and stronger, and had made him lose himself to aggression that had almost got him killed. He was at a severe disadvantage.

He wasn’t given any time to think. Demons were charging at him this way and that, and he was cutting them down as fast as he could. A Pack Rat managed to get a lucky hit to his back that damn near toppled him, and he responded by smashing it in the side with his scythe. The attack sent the rat bowling into a Bahamut, smashing them both into a wall where they instantly became dust.

It was weird. The demons seemed weaker when they got hit, especially the ones that weren’t controlled by… he’d call them Strickens, that worked. So for most of them seemed to be avoiding his weapon as well. Something about the scythe was definitely dangerous to them. Even if Clear couldn't understand it, that much was clear. The longer Clear used it, the less he noticed any of his own tattoo’s demonic energy as well.

A Stricken Scissorhands charged at him. He raised the scythe and swung at it, only for it to dodge out of the way with a spin. He barely managed to avoid getting clipped in the shoulder, but the motion made him lose his balance and drop the scythe, blade forward. Clear tugged at the blade but found it completely lodged in the ground. One of the Hell Hoppers advanced on him with a punching arm raised. Well, he did promise he’d compensate for damages.

The demon struck at him. Clear heard its arm smash into the ground as he spun out of the way and drew Grendel from his back, allowing its mouth to open and gnash freely at the rubble around him. It chewed up a felled corpse and some rock which Clear quickly shot back at the mantis. His shot found its face and staggered it, making it blindly swing at him. He jumped over one arm and used Grendel to bite off the other; the sword empowered with the offering and Clear was able to cleave the mantis in two on his next hit.

Grendel reverted to its normal off-balance weight. He did a quick visual sweep for the scythe, not finding it. Well shit, if it got completely destroyed by one hit… but having the scythe away from him made his tattoo suddenly jump in response to being used. Two more Pack Rats came up to attack him, but he slashed one with one of his knives and kicked it away, allowing Grendel to simply eat the other one. As he spit it out towards another trio of Bahamuts advancing, he noticed a group of demons moving slower out of the corner of his eye. Sure enough, the scythe had simply been thrown a bit across the room, embedded by the blade into the ground through a Scissorhands’ chest. He sheathed Tatzelwurm and dashed over, slashing through the mob as he went; they weren’t moving quickly enough to put up a fight anyway, so it was easy enough for him to get to the weapon. Running up the staff, he held his balance and swung down with the sword in his hand. He beheaded two demons but found the weapon embedded in the shoulder of third. Grendel merely opened up and chomped down on it. He shot at the ground by the scythe’s blade, feeling it loosen a little bit.

He sheathed Grendel before jumping off the scythe. Clear threw his weight into pulling it down when he landed, crouching on the floor to brace himself on one knee. Careful not to let it become lodged in the ground again, he gripped just below the blade with one hand and balanced the rest of the staff over his shoulders. _Fuck_ if that didn’t hurt his neck when he stood up, he almost collapsed to the ground at the pressure of it.

A quick spin around his body dealt with the last of the hoard. Unfortunately the weight finally got to him and he drove it into the ground, grunting as he tried to pull it back out again.

He heard the noise of two more Hell Hoppers. More of the hoard must have come with them, the ruins were suddenly so alive with noise it was deafening. Where were they all coming from? He let out a frustrated huff and drew Grendel then, forget using the scythe when it was this heavy.

What felt like a hours passed. The sun was setting, and there was still no end of the demons. At some point he assumed he’d been Stricken as well, even though he was numbly aware of taking damage and bleeding out he couldn’t stop fighting. Every step with his left leg made the muscles scream in agony. He hand’t stopped tasting blood at least since the sky turned pink, and his palms and arms were numb, probably from Tatzelwurm’s poison.

Clear did always take care to protect his tattoo, especially the alchemy circles. It was the only thing keeping him from being poisoned by his own weapons. D had patched it up over and over again from the little nicks and cuts it had gotten over the years, and that was more than enough to keep it at it’s full power.

This time, he knew whatever Dimitri did wouldn’t be enough.

His left forearm was _flayed_ , deep gouges cutting to the bone. Even after loosely wrapping it the blood quickly stained his flannel red—it hurt so much that even resting it by his side it made him want to writhe in agony. Tatzelwurm stung in his hands, making him realize he should probably put them away. Paralysis had already set deep into his fingers, and as it creeped up his arms he noted that at least the pain in his forearm was numbing. His vision was blurry but he couldn’t tell if that was poison, delirious pain, or something else. But the warehouse he was in was still full of demons, and still collapsing, and he had to get out with the scythe without dying. The odds were so stacked against him he was almost considering praying.

* * *

 

“Hello~o!” Dante sing-songed into the warehouse. Although the sign above the door was on, the lights inside were turned off, making him squint in the darkness. It took him a moment to get adjusted to the lack of light, but once his demonic nature kicked in he was easily able to see.

Nothing seemed out of place. Although, a quick sniff confirmed that only Dimitri was inside, probably asleep at his desk. It would explain the darkness. Taking his time to toe through the messy floors, Dante made his way back to the open area in the middle of the warehouse.

“Hey, Mr. Maker, are you home?”

A weak squeak answered him. Dante’s ears perked, his eyes instantly scanning for where Dimitri had called from.

He was back towards the kitchen, collapsed on the floor and curled into the fetal position on his side. His body was shaking, like he was needed to vomit but was holding it back. Dante swooped over next to him, watching the boy writhe. He’d barely touched his shoulder but it still made Dimitri jump.

His wide, brown eyes were wet. He’d been crying. He seemed to register Dante, but the shaking came back immediately and he curled up again. He was so light and easy to scoop up; Dante moved him to their couch by the front door.

“Hey, kid. Talk to me. What’s wrong? Stomach ache?”

“It’s—Adrian is—the scythe—It hurts, I’m scared…!”

Dante couldn’t really sit around and get information out of him, not when the kid had curled up and went back to stifling his sobs. Physically he looked fine. But what was he saying about some scythe? He must have been talking about Clear when he said Adrian, but—

“Is Clear in trouble?”

“Y-yeah. Ruins. Help!” Dimitri gripped Dante’s collar, weakly shaking him as best he could.

“Please…! Save him!”

Dante eased his hand away and stood up. He’d figure out what happened later, but first, finding and helping Clear took priority.

* * *

 

It took him a little under twenty minutes to get to the ruins while speeding. However, pinpointing exactly where Clear was in the area was a little harder. In the end, he just depended on his demon half to lead him to the warehouse with the most demon remains—and, once closer, the faint, tiny scent of his own father’s blood. It was a convenient way to find Clear when his human smell was drowned out by the sheer amount of other demons.

Although, when he finally found the warehouse, he worried he’d made it too late. Half of it had collapsed, and he couldn’t sense a single living demon or human in the area. Then again, he’d always been better at spotting demons, but he figured he knew Clear well enough to remember what kind of scent he had.

Quickly swinging himself off his motorcycle, he started advancing towards the warehouse. He kept his hands on Ebony and Ivory just in case. As he got closer, he could hear heavy but ragged breathing; following the sound of it, he turned to the side of the warehouse opposite to where it collapsed. There was a hole in the wall, and leaning half out of it was Clear. He was a mess: his clothes were torn and bloody, he was cradling one messily wrapped arm, and his skin was clammy, caught somewhere between too pale and too green. There was a scythe near by, inside of the building, the blade gouged into the ground. It had such a vile presence to it that it made the hair on Dante's neck rise. He'd never be able to forget the former Demon King's energy. But why was it here, in one of Dimitri's weapons...? 

He didn't have time to think on it. Dante pulled Clear out of the rubble. Once he was able to rest the other hunter on the ground and support him, he could check over the damages. Other than the wound on his arm, one of Clear’s legs had also been impaled, twice in the thigh and once just below the knee. There was a shallow gash at his side amongst a myriad of other tiny knicks and scratches. He’d lost a lot of blood, probably explaining why he was so pale. But he was breathing, and very clearly fighting to stay alive.

“What the hell happened…” Dante muttered under his breath. The question made Clear open his eyes. Dante didn’t remember them being bright red, but then again, the color seemed to be fading as he spoke.

“I fucked up,” Clear rasped out, slow. “Like that first time…”

“What first time?”

“Wh-when we fought… I got stricken, again…”

“Jeez, again? You got a penchant or something?” Dante tried for a joke, but he couldn’t betray the seriousness in his voice. After determining that the kid was definitely too weak to support himself, he lifted him to carry him back to his motorcycle. Figuring out how to actually carry him back was a problem for five-minutes-from-now-Dante.

“Don’t think… I’m gonna make it…” Clear mumbled. “When my tattoo lost power, I was holding Tatz… I think I got poisoned…”

“Your tattoo lost power? How?” Dante was stunned to hear it. Then again, from what little he’d read of alchemy, if a circle was broken it ceased to function. And the gash on Clear’s arm… Damn it, there was no way…

“What did you say could heal you, same blood type? Or a stronger demon?”

“We don’t have time.. To get to Lady…”

“What about me?”

Impossibly, Clear managed to laugh at him. “You’re… only half-demon… what could you possibly do….”

“Well, I guess we’re about to find out.”

His father’s demonic blood could heal a stabbing. Dante had seen his own blood heal Clear before, when they first met, and when they sparred. It was never anything like this, but if it didn’t work at least he could say he tried. Adjusting himself and Clear on his motorcycle to support both of them, Clear in front of him, he reached back to Rebellion and used the blade to cut his own hand. It started to heal instantly but not before he was able to smear some of his blood across Clear’s good arm.

His tattoo burned red where Dante offered it food. At first it didn’t seem like anything was happening. But after a few more passes, Clear jerked and his body tensed. He was caught between writhing and freezing up, strangled startled noises managing to make their way from his throat. But it looked like the wounds on his legs were starting to mend and heal over.

Dante gave more and more blood, so much that he started to get woozy too. But the kid was still gasping for breath and his skin was starting to turn back to its usual brown, with lighter patches where his wounds were scaring over. Maybe he’d given too much. He hadn’t needed more than a splash to heal the bruises from when they first met. A drop had made a skinned knee from one of their sparring sessions heal right over. He would have thought on it more if Clear didn’t suddenly throw himself forward and a pained yell and—

An entire wing shredded through the back of Clear’s jacket from his left shoulder blade with a splash of blood. It was black, very visibly tattooed in red, covered in black leathery skin criss-crossed with black bright red tattoos. Dante recognized the shape as being vaguely similar to his own Devil Trigger although of smaller size, but before he could discern more of the specifics the wing had furled up into Clear’s back. Under his torn clothing, Dante could see the tattoo pulsing. But more importantly, it looked as though it was drawing something entirely new across Clear’s skin. The fact that it was moving around and growing on its own made Dante really wonder how demonic in nature it was; clearly it was more than the little party trick he’d come to think it was.

Damn it. He’d figure it out later. Clear was passed out across the handlebars of his bike. Dante had to get him back and still explain all this to Dimitri. When Clear woke up, he’d make sure they’d drop his tab so he could pay for the gas expenses cumulated over the last two days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The recipe Clear mentions, his mother's recipe, is actually a recipe me and my dad make a lot. We only do the simple version (though one day it would be fun to make noodles from scratch!), but here it is if you wanna try it yourself: 
> 
> Ingredients: Pasta of your choice, 1 package ground meat, we use turkey or chicken, 1 can tomato paste, salt/pepper/seasonings (Italian seasoning mix is great and easy, but I really like using fresh herbs like thyme, oregano, and basil if I have them on hand), balsamic vinegar, 1 can diced tomatoes (optional), mushrooms (optional), sliced onion (optional), sliced bell pepper (optional), water, olive oil. 
> 
> Boil your pasta how you like ^^ Add the ground turkey, onion, bell pepper, and a little bit of olive oil to a large pan, and break the meat up/cook until brown and the veggies are a bit tender. Lower heat to medium-low. Add 1 can tomato paste and equal amount water to pan and combine. Add your seasonings and balsamic to taste, as well as the diced tomatoes and mushrooms. Mix it up until everything is well covered in the sauce, then toss with pasta and serve, or just serve the sauce over a bed of pasta ^^ 
> 
> It's a super easy recipe, I've been doing it with my dad for years haha It only takes like fifteen minutes to make and I usually make it when I'm hungry and need to eat something fast/want me some leftovers for a couple days/get nostalgic for my childhood LOL Do tell me how it comes out if you try it ^^


	9. Mission 9: Deathly Chill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter as a meme:
> 
> Dante: Mr. Hunter? Mr. Hunter! Oh my fuckin god, he fuckin dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Trish and Lady are still side characters (I’m sorry) but I still wanted to give them more screen time with both Dante and Clear haha I want the entire group to interact with each other at least once, hopefully I succeed in doing that. 
> 
> I think also in the timeline, if I did my math right, this should take place 1-2 years before DMC4, so Agnus would still have been doing experiments and making Pandora/Lucifer/Gilgamesh to open the Hell Gates in Fortuna. It’s p much canon that Dimitri isn’t actually the first person to create a real Devil Arm, he’s just the first one that Dante knows of/has heard of doing this so far. 
> 
> Also I'm sure you're wondering when we're going to get another Devil Arm and a chance to actually use Biscione? I promise they will come up soon but they're HIGHKEY secondary compared to Mundus Cereris lol I'm sorry, I'm sorry haha;;

“Is he gonna be okay…?”

Dimitri’s voice was quiet. Shaky. A child scared for his best friend. Dante looked to him from his seat at the picnic table. He couldn’t really answer that.

Clear hadn’t struggled the entire way home. If anything, he seemed almost lifeless. Dante had rushed him back to Arms Race and brought him directly up to his room at Dimitri’s orders. Then, he scurried back to the ruins to retrieve the scythe. By the time he’d gotten back to Arms Race with it, he’d felt something was very wrong with his own demonic energy. Oh, and Clear was awake and screaming.

He probably wouldn’t have even noticed it if Dimitri hadn’t said something. The scythe was dropped off by the work bench and Dante went to Clear’s room on the second floor to check on him.

His shrieking had crescendoed to the point he was losing his voice. Dante couldn’t really get a good visual on why the kid was yelling so much, but the single wing—bigger this time, it was shaking the walls with each beat; oh, there was a second, much smaller one too!—was out and flailing around as much as he was. That was probably the reason. Dante wasn’t too sure about what was going on, god did he have questions, but Clear’s yelling was starting to give him a headache. So, he did what any good friend would do: used Trickster Style to zip over and then knocked Clear out with a swift chop to the back of the neck.

The wings were sluggish to return to his back, but Dante could get a good look at them now. The larger of the two wasn’t muscle and flesh like he’d first assumed it was. Rather, the base of it was comprised of bone covered by tattooed leathery hide. The shape was similar to his own Devil Trigger, but less segmented, and more like a traditional bat's wing. The smaller one was in a similar shape, but instead of red tattoos the markings seemed to be made of grey scales. They definitely weren’t made of anything in Clear’s body, but they were attached to his shoulder blade like any good set of wings should be albeit only on one side. Spontaneously growing a new pair of limbs was probably what was causing him so much pain.

The tattoo was still drawing itself. Dante didn’t really stick around to see what the lines became, instead more concerned with getting Clear into bed so his body could recover. In the back of his mind, Dante thought that maybe giving him so much blood was a worse conclusion.

Dante sighed and brought himself back to the present. He shook his head and looked Dimitri in the eyes. Would Clear be okay?

“I don’t know,” he said. There was no way to tell right now.

“Oh…”

They went silent. Dante wished he had a drink. Dimitri was fidgeting, his cheek sucked in like he was biting at it. He kept looking around the shop at anywhere but Clear’s room and the scythe next to him. The scythe… Dante had him here, he could ask some questions.

“So. You made that weapon, did you?”

“Huh? Y-yeah…”

“Anything you can tell me about it?”

Dimitri flinched at the question. His fidgeting increased and he looked like he’d start sweating if Dante pressed him anymore.

“I—I can’t. The customer paid extra for confidentiality, so…”

“But they’re not here right now, are they?”

Dimitri bit into his cheek again. “I guess…”

“We’ll keep it hush-hush. Besides, I need to know how you ended up with Mundus’ remains.”

“Who’s?” the confusion on Dimitri’s face was not what Dante was expecting. Shock, maybe fear, but if he hadn’t been told anything… well, it wasn’t like he was at Mallet Island or anything when Mundus had tried to conquer the world a couple years ago.

“You weren’t told anything about what you were working with?”

Dimitri shook his head slowly. “I was just told to make it, and threatened that if I didn’t…”

He abruptly stood up and started pacing. Dante was surprised that after all the silence and all the contract-bound confidentiality, Dimitri was suddenly rambling about his work.

“He didn’t even offer the password! He was just rambling information about my family! And then he sent his men and swore he’d hurt Adrian if I didn’t do anything! I was forced into it. I had no choice! And now you’ve got the know-how and I’m the only one left out of the loop, while Adrian’s probably dying and—“

“Hey, hey, calm down there, Mister Maker. I’ll tell you what I know, okay?” Dante stood with his hands raised, trying to placate Dimitri. Although the alchemist stopped rambling he didn’t stop pacing, taking particular care not to step on any of his drawn circles on the floor.

Dante went about explaining who Mundus was. It wasn’t painful, per say, to bring up the murder of his family, but it still left him melancholy. But he powered through to tell Dimitri about meeting Trish and what happened on Mallet Island when he killed the Demon Prince of Darkness with his father’s power.

“Some vacation!” Dante joked. It didn’t seem to put Dimitri at ease.

“Prince of Darkness, huh… How’d he end up in that guy’s hands, I wonder… You sealed him away last time?”

“He must have gotten out again. Or was dragged out by your client. Unless I meet the guy myself I’ll never know.”

Dimitri hummed to himself. He paused pacing for a moment, standing on the one clear spot on the floor. Dante couldn’t help but inspect it more thoroughly, when not only was it the only visible area but definitely had what looked to be a smudged bloodstain. He didn’t realize Dimitri butchered demons too.

“What’s with this smudge there?”

Dimitri glanced down at his feet where Dante pointed. At first he jumped away from it, but then with a wave of his hands, tripped over himself trying to kick fallen papers and tools over it. After regaining his balance, he clenched his hands by his sides and let a resigned sigh leave his lips.

“It’s, uh, you can’t tell Adri—Clear, okay? You can’t tell him.”

Dante crossed his arms and nodded. “Cross my heart.”

“I scrubbed it down while he was out. It’s my blood. I drew a circle with it. That big one over there, well it’s covered a bit now but, it connected to this one. It’s how I finished Mundus Cereris.”

Dante looked to where Dimitri was pointing. There were a couple of other circles drawn over it now, but he could definitely see the remains of a much larger circle. It was intricate, with words in another language he couldn’t easily discern but had definitely seen before. A demonic language he’d only seen used for seals and on certain gates… There was a pair of lines drawn from the circle towards the smudge under Dimitri’s feet, half washed away presumably from when he’d cleaned the floor.

“It’s a conduit node. The function is to convert matter from outside of the circle to energy inside the circle and…”

“So what were you doing, converting human matter? That’s kind of…”

“I just—I know that Devil Arms are the personified weapons of demon souls, so I— well, you know how it is, you need a soul for a soul, so I—well, my soul—“

“Are you trying to tell me that you made a Devil Arm with part of your soul and part of Mundus’.”

“Yeah! Yup! That’s it! I fucked up didn’t I!”

Dante had never heard Dimitri curse before. He was mildly amazed, that the kid had managed to use his knowledge of engineering and alchemy to actually hand-make a real Devil Arm. Then again, it was probably only a matter of time until some figured it out; he was just glad he knew Dimitri, and knew he was on his side. Dante looked at the scythe, then back at him.

“Well, I’m impressed, honestly. Congrats, kid, you’re gonna go down in history for creating a Devil Arm in a garage!”

Dimitri somehow managed to groan and laugh at the same time. He’d gone back to pacing and didn’t seem like he was going to slow down any time soon.

“Well that’s great, isn’t that. If it serves it’s other purpose, I’ll probably go down in history for something else entirely. Wouldn’t that be just amazing—“

“That other thing would be…?” Dante interrupted his rant. Dimitri paused his pacing. He’d gone from a flurry of movement to completely still, it was almost unnerving.

“I—I can’t disclose that.”

The door to the shop swung open. Dante peeked over his shoulder towards it but wasn’t in visible range. He turned back to Dimitri. He was all movement again, grabbing at the scythe and trying to move it. Dante stepped over to help him and the kid shoved it into his hands.

“I need to hire you. Right now. To test this,” then, he yelled to the front of the shop, “current play tester’s on vacation right now!!”

There was a grunt. The hair on the back of his neck rose, Dante knew a demon when he heard one. It was damn good at hiding it’s smell though. What the hell had D gotten into…?

“Payment up front? Or after the job’s complete?” He asked. Mundus Cereris was heavy in his hands, heavier than even Rebellion. Now that he was less panicked and could focus on it, it felt like it was sapping his energy and making him weaker by just holding it.

“After you bring it back. I need the money. It’ll keep us alive, rent’s tight and all that you know.”

It was a weird choice of words. The demon from the door was still a good ways away, but it had moved into visible range of them both now. A woman in a suit, with sunglasses on. Dimitri wasn’t looking at her at all, but Dante kept his eyes on her.

“Right, got it. Any deadline?”

“Tonight, preferably. So I can fine-tune anything that needs adjustments! But don’t let it cut you, okay? What happened to Clear. I don’t want that to happen to you, too.”

D’s voice dropped to a shaky whisper, his eyes darting towards where Clear was asleep in his room at the back of the warehouse.

“He might not heal.”

Dante’s brows shot up. In the second he took his eyes of the demon, he heard the sound of the shop door closing. He hadn’t realized how much pressure Dimitri was putting into pressing the scythe into his hands, until he released the staff of it and backed off. Dante surprised himself by almost dropping the weapon. Clear had used this thing? No wonder Dante had found him in such bad shape, he must have gotten overwhelmed when he wasn’t able to swing it well. The alchemist flopped back onto his stool.

“I’m sorry, I can’t say anymore. It’s a classified project. Maybe I said too much. Keep an eye on your back, okay?”

* * *

 

It was all well and good that he was hired by Dimitri, but without a job of his own he didn’t have anything to test the weapon on. Maybe it was a cry for help? To just get the weapon away from them and be done with it. No, that couldn’t be right, if there were demons involved—weather Dimitri knew or not—he probably knew it was dangerous for the scythe to leave his hands for more than a few hours.

While he was deliberating what to do with the damn weapon, he was taking his time heading back to Devil May Cry. He wasn’t more than a few blocks away when Trish rolled up on Lady’s motorcycle next to him.

“Get on loser, we’re going shopping,” she said immediately, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder. She had the Devil Sword Sparda strapped to her back, and Biscione at her hip. Dante laughed at her as he climbed on.

“Morrison found us a job?”

“Small one, clean up for a politician. His autumn home is infested.”

“All these houses and they can’t afford to pay us more than pocket change,” Dante lamented with a shake of his head. “What am I gonna tell Lady?”

Once they reached the house, the job was a fast one. The infestation was spearheaded by a hoard of tiny demon cockroaches controlled by a couple much larger ones. With Trish’s control of electricity, taking down the small fry was easy. After that, the big ones weren’t much of a problem either. They were slow-moving and didn’t seem to really attack, they were just slowly eating through the life force of the unfortunate maids and butlers sent to take care of the house that had found them.

Using the scythe had been the tricky part. While Dante had mostly resorted to using Biscione’s explosions to deal with the little bugs, he’d actually attempted to use Mundus Cereris on the big ones. It was heavy for even him, and something about it made him feel so… human. He tried to Devil Trigger while holding it but was surprised to find that he reverted back in the middle of a slash without even commanding himself too.

Trish watched it happened. At first she looked like she was going to crack some wise comment, but then she glanced at the scythe and pursed her lips instead. He met her eyes and they exchanged a silent conversation. Exerting his will over it, he was surprised to find the weapon get heavier in his hands. If he remembered right, Mundus’ world-rending powers gave him control over things like space-time, and gravity. The weapon must have had the same abilities then, explaining why it would be able to make itself heavier to fight back. It must have done this to Clear too.

What Dimitri had said, he won’t heal, rang in his head again. Out of curiosity, Dante reached up to press his palm against the blade. As he slid his hand along it and let it cut into him, he hissed loudly enough to get Trish’s attention.

“How did you knick yourself on the blade after all that? I know you can be careless, but this is—“

“I did it on purpose. Look.” He held his hand out to her. She looked at his palm, at the cut not healing, and her eyes flicked up to him.

“Mister Maker said something to me. ‘He might not heal.’ He probably wasn’t talking about Clear, the kid physically recovered fine with all the blood I gave him.”

“You think he was actually talking about you then?”

They looked at his palm again. It barely had started closing, hell, the bleeding hadn’t even stopped yet. Dante’s trusty healing had never been compromised, not even when he’d been stabbed by his own sword, the Devil Sword Sparda, and Yamato. Tatzelwurm’s paralytic poison couldn’t even put a dampener on his wounds closing up. If this thing could slow that healing to this degree, if someone managed to stab him with it…

“Shit…” Trush mumbled under her breath. She reached into one of her back pockets, pulling out a handkerchief Patty had given her. It was a quick job but she wrapped his hand to help slow the bleeding down.

“So what’s your plan? Are you gonna take it back? Or just destroy it?” She said as she tied off the cloth.

“Dunno. You felt it too right, just before we left that there were demons following us? I think if this thing doesn’t go where it needs to they could be in danger. Especially with Clear out of commission right now.”

“No one to protect Dimitri…” Trish clicked her tongue. “I could do some babysitting.”

“I’ll pay you extra.”

“Oh, with what, your debt to Lady? You’ll owe me!”

Dante put his hands up in surrender. Mundus Cereris had returned to its lighter state although the decreased weight didn’t make much of a difference when Dante was effectively depending on his human strength. It sucked demon energy; even Trish, who’s shoulders were slumped—and they were never slumped after a hunt—looked more tired around it.

“Alright, alright! You two drive such hard bargains!” He laughed at her and shook his head. They met each other’s eyes.

“But thank you. I’ll look into his current contractor, in the mean time.”

“Good plan. I’ll see if I can worm anything out of him too, maybe we can pull the weed up by the roots.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of this chapter, my official doc has hit 100+ pages ^^ Maybe I should have done this in NaNoWriMo, this is becoming a novel.,,. Sorry everybody..,,,.,


	10. Mission 10: Winging It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also sorry I really wanted to post this like a week ago but I fucked off to play TWEWY: Final Remix, went camping with my dad, and had to work so I just got back to this yesterday lol
> 
> Also, double sorry that this took so long, every other chapter has _at least_ 500-1000 words already written for it, weather they're fights or dialogue, but chaps 10/11 have absolutely NOTHING except the descriptions loooool So I had to write this one from nothing and just hope that it came out okay lol;; The fight scheduled for this chap ended up moved because the intro was So Long, and the next chapter actually had nothing happening it was gonna be like 1K words LOL So we're finally getting another Devil Arm! But not now. Sorry OTL But I guess it's like DMC4 where you get no Devil Arms cuz it's Nero and then suddenly three in a row cuz it's Dante lmao Additionally, bear in mind that at the time of this (just after the anime in the timeline), Agnus is probably doing Devil Arm/Angel experiments, but again, Dante doesn't know of it. 
> 
> Anyway I'm rambling, I'll get on with it haha

Clear knew he’d been through hell when even his _eyelids_ were sore upon waking up. Everything in his body hurt. The last thing he remembered was fighting in the ruins, losing power over his tattoo, getting stricken again and then passing out. When he recognized he was back in his room at Arms Race, he was able to confirm that Dante showing up wasn’t just some delirious dream.

It would kind of explain the nightmares then. Visions of demons running through his head. Reminders of his past. A strange man with a pair of swords that distinctly looked like Dante, but he'd never seen before. He remembered trying to fight back against a vision of his father, the night he’d run away after taking one too many beatings. But in the dream he had his tattoo. And when he’d summoned some strange wing-like scythe weapon and mercilessly cut his father down, a phantom version of Dante was standing behind him and cheering him on.

He wasn’t wearing red in the dream, instead in full black with shadows mostly covering his face. His voice had been different too; deeper, and yet more feminine, and then Clear’s own voice, all overlaid on each other and making some strange cacophonous noise that vaguely resembled words.

 _“Just give into me,”_ the voice had said, _“don’t just use my powers, become my power. Become my host. I’ll give you so much strength, you can’t even handle it.”_

That was how Clear knew it wasn’t Dante, but his tattoo speaking. Why it had taken Dante’s form was beyond him; maybe it was just trying to make him trust it more. It had never directly spoken to him before.

 _“I’ve already bested you, parasite,”_ Clear had answered instead. Without even hesitating, he sliced the phantom Dante in half too.

Where he’d slashed it, pain erupted from his back. So much pain, tearing and crushing and burning, making him crumple and scream. And scream he did, until his voice was raw and he was crying. The nightmares got worse after that. Sometimes his tattoo would eat him alive. Sometimes he wold simply be floating through nothingness, with every hateful thought he’d ever had running through his head. In one dream, he relived slaying Grendel, but instead of coming out victorious he watched Dimitri and then himself be swallowed alive and spat back out as half-digested corpses. In another, he fought his old teacher, but this time she wouldn’t go down until he’d butchered her, ripped her apart limb from limb, tore out her heart with his bare hands, gouged out her throat with his teeth. She was laughing all the while—it was his tattoo’s voice. Between every nightmare, his tattoo would appear to him, cackling and asking him, _“have you had enough yet?”_

Clear checked for his phone under the pillow. He didn’t find it, so he forced his body to move to get up. A nice shower would be able to wash away all the soreness, hopefully, and the…

Holy _shit_. There was so much blood on his bed and floor, was that all his? Things had been knocked off the dresser and small set of shelves he had near his bed. He looked to the window he had by the door. The shades that usually covered it had been thrown outside, glass shattered messily from the center to the edge of the frame. What the fuck had happened…? As he surveyed the damage (thank god they weren’t renting) his tattoo seemed to be chuckling against his skin. He looked at his hand. Again, he asked himself, _what the fuck?_

He’d ask Dante after a shower and some cleanup. Some of the drawers had been thrown open, the top couple shirts splattered with blood. He found and old, oversized T-shirt that wasn’t stained and a pair of black ripped jeans he hadn’t worn in a while. They’d do for now so he could wash his clothes—damn, he had some serious cleaning to do. He’d probably have to toss the bedding.

When he got downstairs, the lights in the warehouse were off. Dimitri must have been asleep or out, but Clear couldn’t tell what time it was without his phone. He found his jacket left on the picnic table, a massive rip in the back of it. He must have gotten it while fighting, but he didn’t remember being sliced there. Fishing his phone out of his pocket, he found it dead. The screen was miraculously un-broken despite the beating the case looked like it had taken. He’d done good getting a Bahamut Box. He plugged the phone in to charge while he went to take a shower.

Passing the bathroom mirror shirtless, he did a double-take at the new ink on his back. He was surprised he could see it, as there was so much blood smeared across his left side. Despite the blood, he twisted as much as he could to see the new sprawl across his shoulder blades and down his spine: two wings, crossed at the base and surrounding the knives and eye at the nape of his neck. Those had been there, but the wings were entirely new. There was a second smaller pair beneath them, leading to what looked to be a tail down the entire line of his spine. He hadn’t seen his tattoo grow like this in a long long time, not since he’d…

The nightmare of ripping his former mentor apart made his gut twist. He looked away from the mirror and threw himself into the shower, nevermind the icy chill of it. As it warmed up, he did his best to scrub all the blood from his body; by the time he was clean, he’d rubbed his skin raw over the areas his tattoo stained.

* * *

 

After his shower, he returned to the kitchen to find his phone and tell the time. More than two days had passed since the mission with the scythe. It was almost five in the morning, no wonder the lights were off. Well, at least when Dimitri slept, he was a heavy sleeper, so Clear was free to start cleaning up. All the glass had already been swept up, probably by Dimitri shortly after Clear had broken it, but he could now see the ends of his curtains were shredded. What the hell had even happened, did he fight a damn demon in his sleep?

Against his better judgement, Clear put off cleaning to call Dante. When he didn’t pick up after the first four calls, Clear figured it was too early in the morning for this. So he busied himself with cleaning his clothing and the rest of the room. The bedding and curtains were tossed out and he managed to reorganize everything on his shelves. By the time he had decided to flip the mattress over, the sun had come up enough to make the light from the door cast shadows across the tarp-covered shelving by the front.

Clear went to the front of the shop and flicked the lights on, then came back to start cooking breakfast. Dimitri would probably be up soon if he wasn’t nearly as sore as Clear was. And maybe Dante would be up for Clear to call too. Or, maybe not, their training had always started late in the day. Damn it, Clear was too on edge for him to not answer the phone—

His hand slipped off the onion he was cutting and into line of his knife. He wasn’t fast enough to stop himself but jerked back before he could cut his fingers clean off. Still, it was a deep cut, and he instantly rushed to find a towel to press to his fingers and stop the…

Bleeding… Or a lack thereof, in this case.

His eyes widened as he watched his tattoo shift to stitch his skin together. When the lines retreated to their normal placement, the only thing left of the injury at all was a pale line across his knuckles under the green ink and small bit of blood. It had never done that for him before. Questions made his mind race. Dropping the bloodied knife in the sink, he called Dante again.

After another six calls and the man not answering, Clear considered going to Devil May Cry in person. He washed his quaking hands as he thought over what he’d even begin with. _Why did my tattoo heal me? What happened to my room while I was out? Why did my ink grow across my skin again? What the hell is happening to it—to me?_

Dimitri barreling into him knocked him out of his thoughts. His arms wrapped around Clear in a fierce hug. His voice was wavering as he spoke.

“You’re up! I was so worried about you! I don’t even know what was happening, when did you grow wings? I thought you were gonna beat down the wall, and after you broke the window—“

“I’m sorry, D, hold the fuck up. _Wings?!”_

Dimitri didn’t seem intent on letting go of him any time soon. Even though Clear wanted to jump back, he was held in place by his roommate. He had grown wings?!

“I was surprised too! I thought it was a Devil Arm at first but the way it retracted into you, it…”

Well, it would explain the soreness, and the new designs. Clear took as deep a breath as he could to calm down. And then another, and another. Dimitri didn’t entirely let him go, but loosened his hold enough that Clear could lean against the sink. Wings… He’d grown fucking wings in his sleep, and broken a window with them. Part of him wished he could bring his old mentor back to life just so he could beat some answers out of her.

“Adrian…?”

“It’s just… So much to take in,” Clear breathed. His knuckles were going white from where he was gripping the sink. Now a new question he could ask Dante: _am I turning into a demon?_

As he was thinking, his eyes absently traveled down to the still-bloodied knife in the sink. Dimitri followed him. He stifled a gasp, looking at the red on the blade.

“You really are out of it, you never cut yourself while you’re cooking…”

“It was an accident, but…” Clear glanced to his healed hand again. He forced himself to stand up and took the knife again.

“Adrian? What are you doing? H-hey!!”

Clear sucked in a breath, the pressed the knife down and drew it across his skin of his forearm. It made a deep gash a few inches long, blood bubbling to the surface from the clean line Clear drew. Dimitri barely hesitated to pull the knife from his hand and drop it back in the sink.

“What the _fuck_ Adrian, are you crazy?! If you’re stressed out then go back to bed! Don’t just do this kind of th—“

Whatever Dimitri was trying to say was cut off. He looked up from where he was grabbing a towel just in time to see the tattoo doing as it had done before. Morphing to stitch over the cut, and healing him up. Again, all that was left was a pale scar under the black ink, with no indication that it was a fresh wound at all. When Dimitri started poking at it it didn’t even ache.

“What…”

“That’s what I wanna know. I’m gonna head over to Devil May Cry and figure this out. Dante’s gotta know something.”

Dimitri looked up at Clear, honey eyes wide. “I wanna go with you.”

* * *

 

Trish greeted them when they knocked on Devil May Cry’s door. She looked almost surprised to see them, and stood aside so they could come in.

“I guess you were the ones who called that early. Dante’s not even up yet.”

“Figured,” Clear said with a sigh.

“Sorry to bother you,” Dimitri said, but he seemed more distracted looking around the shop. It was his first time here after all.

“You’re no bother. Should I get him up?” Trish asked.

“I’d appreciate that. Lady’s out?”

“She’ll be here later to collect some money, probably.”

“Sounds good…” Clear let the conversation drop. Trish nodded to him and went up the stairs to the second floor. Her heels clicked all the way up to one of the doors on the upper level. Clear expected her to simply bang on the door and yell to open it. Instead, he watched her raise her leg and kick the damn door in.

“Dante! Get up, you’ve got customers!”

Trish went into the room. A few minutes, a loud thud, and a yell later, she pulled a very ruffled, very tired, pajama-clad Dante out of the room. He yawned and stretched, Trish grumbling something about ‘why can’t you at least sleep in shorts’ as she shoved him towards the stairs. Rubbing his face as he shambled down the stairs, he cast tired blue eyes over Clear and Dimitri.

“What time is it? Nine? You’re way too early for training,” Dante yawned.

“I’m not here for training,” Clear snapped. His fists were clenched tightly. He’d already braced himself to hear something he didn’t want to.

“What happened after you found me in the ruins?”

Dante took a heavy seat in his desk chair and kicked his bare feet up on the old wooden desk. With a deep sigh he leaned all the way back.

“The ruins, huh… Other than the wing, nothing.”

Clear stomped forward and slammed his hands on the desk hard enough to make Dante jump.

“Don’t take this lightly! _Something’s_ wrong with me, and I need to figure out what it is! People don’t just grow _wings_ , Dante, my tattoo doesn’t just _do that._ Its got some new sprawl on my back and now it’s healing damage without me having to feed it. What happened to me?! Am I—am I turning into a demon…?”

He ran out of steam at Dante not even looking surprised. When the older hunter didn’t immediately answer, Clear’s heart sank. Already he was jumping to the worst conclusions. But, as he was turning to look for comfort from Dimitri, Dante suddenly laughed. The shock of it made him jump damn near out of his skin. He was too tense for this, wound tight as a spring.

“What?! Where’d you get that idea! You’re human! Humans can’t just become demons! Jeez, what kind of pulp fiction have you been reading…”

Although he wanted to be mad, Clear just felt relieved when he asked, “I’m really not?”

“Not as far as I can tell. Look, Clear. I don’t entirely know what happened either. I gave you my blood since I knew it would heal you. The wing, the new design… Everything about that, I have no clue. Honestly I was hoping _you_ would have some answers for _me_.”

“I guess we’re both in the dark on this…”

“I might have an idea,” Trish suddenly piped up.

“I heard you mention before your tattoo is a Devil Arm? Maybe you’re just discovering a new form of power it has.”

“But I… watched the wings curl back into Clear’s back… what kind of Devil Arm does that…?” Dimitri mumbled, coming up to stand closer to Clear now. Trish hummed in thought. She was sitting down on the small landing of the stairs with her legs crossed. She let her cheek rest in the palms of her hands. 

“Some Devil Arms have transformative properties. Or maybe…” She pursed her lips.

Dante narrowed his eyes at the ink on Clear’s wrists. Clear recognized the look from a few days ago, when he’d started asking a question and then instantly dropped it. He perked up a little, more curious than ever at what Dante was about to ask.

“I don’t know how to explain it. You’re completely human, I’ve used Arms that change my Devil Trigger, but I’ve never heard of an Arm giving someone a Devil Trigger." Dante gave the best shrug he could with his hands behind his head.

“A Devil… Trigger? What’s that?”

“I’ll show you next time we’re sparring, I’m too tired right now. Basically it lets me become a full demon so I can use all of the powers my human body can’t handle.”

“Are you saying I—“

“Clear’s tattoo is demonic, right? I always thought it was just a conduit for power because it uses an alchemy circle to convert demon blood but… I realize maybe I was wrong about that?” Dimitri interrupted. He stepped forward, absently taking Clear’s wrist to trace over the lines.

“I don’t know how best to say it… I think maybe you’ve been a little more demon all along—since you got it, I mean—otherwise you wouldn’t be able to use Devil Arms, right? That was what your teacher told you? I know you never talk about her ramblings but help me out here, what more did she say about it?”

Clear clicked his tongue, his face scrunching up in disgust. Still, he offered, “dunno, she was always talking about turning people into angels and shit, but people kept losing their minds or whatever. Her old lab partner? I guess he was too gung-ho about the whole thing and kept jumping ahead which was causing the problem. Slow integration was her wording—“

“That’s it! Your tattoo was probably already gaining power at a steady rate—the spreading of the ink must have been an indication of that. So the wing was probably inevitable! The introduction of Dante’s blood probably sped up the process which is why your body wasn’t ready to handle it! That’s so—“

“Okay, I get it, you’re excited, but if you call it cool I _will_ slap you.”

“It’s so… _half_ cool,” Dimitri settled for sheepishly, earning a resigned sigh. Clear turned back to Dante.

“So we’ve got some answers, I guess, does it sound right to you?”

“Like I said, I’ve never heard of this kind of thing happening before. But if that’s what Dimitri’s come up with I’ll buy it. ‘Sides, you’ve got a pseudo-Devil Trigger now, might as well make the most of it.”

“I don’t even know how to use it. If it drains me of that much blood on the regular it might kill me.”

“That’s what you have Dante for,” Trish said with a snicker. As she was standing up, the door to the shop swung open, and Lady peaked her head in.

“Wow, you’re all up early! And here I thought I’d have to kick Dante’s door in!”

“Already got it covered.” Trish winked and tossed her hair over her shoulder as she motioned to the door. Lady gave a whistle at the splintered wood where the doorjamb used to be. 

“Damn, next time! Anyway, grab your guns, boys! I have a job for you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're officially halfway through!! I'm impressed with myself that I've managed to keep the momentum going! I wanna be done with the by the end of the summer so I'll just keep going, thank you for sticking with me to 50% ^^! 
> 
> I'll try to get a group of updates out quickly, I'm aiming to get to chap 13 before I take another big long break since I only have to do minimal editing on that chap.


	11. Mission 11: Did It Hurt, When You Fell From Heaven?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so tired lmao I wanted this posted TWO MONTHS AGO, but school started and I had No Time to write it. I've got three day weekends but I'm on varsity esports and I have 7 AM classes 4 days a week. I know I shouldn't complain because I have an amazing opportunity, and I'm so happy to be going to my current school!!! But it still takes a lot out of me since I don't sleep till like 1 AM regularly lol;; Most of my free time currently is taken up by nappinnggggg 
> 
> Which I didn't do today because I was awake and wanted to write!! I'm sorry for the wait, and also that like literally nothing interesting happens this chapter, but I hope you still enjoy ^^!

Clear was given absolutely no time to think about their conversation until he was on the road with Dante again. He’d come to Devil May Cry without his weapons, so the group had to go back to Arms Race before they left—Trish on her motorcycle and the rest piling into the back of Dimitri’s van. Clear wasn’t entirely sure how it had been brought back from the ruins, but he assumed Dante had done the job and that was good enough for him.

When they got to Arms Race, Lady stayed in the car with Dante to give him the rundown of the mission, and then head off to her own job soon their side of town. Clear took his sweet time gathering up his weapons. Mundus Cereris had been left in their weapons storage, taking up almost the whole wall. Although Clear tried not to look at it, it had an allure that pulled him to it. If he focused on it, the second heartbeat he’d been feeling was running faster than his own heart. It was his tattoo that wanted to devour the scythe’s energy; to hold it again and steal more power, to consume it in its entirety and use it for himself—

“Hey! Are you ready to go?”

Dimitri’s voice snapped him out of his stupor. Clear flinched away from the scythe, he didn’t even realize he’d turned to touch it. Dimitri was giving him a wide-eyed stare, very clearly biting the inside of his cheek. Clear turned away from the scythe without so much as another glance and tugged his carbine off the wall as he passed it.

“Yeah. I’m good. What’s with the weapon?”

Dimitri was holding a spear in his hands, quite a bit taller than Clear himself. The blade was of Dimitri’s own making, but the hilt connecting it to the staff was definitely demonic. Towards the end of the staff was Dimitri’s signature bead tassel, colored teal to match the rest of the weapon.

“I made while you were asleep. It’s a surprise for Dante.”

Clear raised an eyebrow.

“Just ‘cuz?”

“More of a ‘thank you.’ For looking after you.”

“He does deserve that, doesn’t he,” Clear sighed. They might have made a couple jokes about Dimitri’s wording, but he hadn’t said it in a joking tone, and Clear was still a bit too shaken to humor him. Instead, he held the door of Arms Race open to Dimitri.

“Well, better give it to him, huh.”

They exited the shop, the slam of the door closing catching everyone else’s attention. It seemed they had been discussing the best way to get to get to the location and who all was going to go.

“I’ve got my next job to do so I’ll leave it to you guys,” Lady said, and offered Clear her helmet.

“And I’ll be sticking around here for a bit,” Trish said. She went to stand next to Dimitri without anymore of an explanation, although Dante gave her a rather serious stare-and-nod combination that she returned.

“That leaves us two. I’ll fill you in on the way,” Dante told Clear, who made an affirmative sound. Then, to Dimitri, he shrugged a shoulder.

“Right, Dante!” Once Dimitri caught his attention, he tossed the spear to the other hunter. As soon as it touched his palms he spun it around his body. Clear had to back away from the usual flashy display. Clear wasn’t expecting him to stab it into the ground and have the spear lift him clean into the air, where he did some moves he very clearly learned from watching a pole dancer in a club as he was lowered back down. When Dante touched the ground, he posed towards Clear, one finger pointing to him. He would have given Dante a more displeased look if the whole debacle hadn’t made Dimitri laugh so much. Dante turned to him.

“A present? For me? You shouldn’t have!”

“Take it for a spin! I’ll fix it up if it breaks,” the alchemist promised as he wiped a tear from his eye.

“Any special occasion?” Dante asked him, placing the weapon to his back next to Rebellion. Dimitri shook his head and retreated to the shop, but paused at the door.

“Just keep looking out for Clear, okay?”

And then he was gone.

* * *

 

“I don’t need you to look after me,” Clear huffed at Dante. Stop-and-go traffic out of the city made it easy enough to give Clear a solid briefing on the job, and a solid teasing about what Dimitri had said. A mountain another hour past where they’d met Biscione had sightings of an uncountable amount of demons—that wasn’t too out of the ordinary—and though no one had been hurt yet, someone one town over called Lady to specifically request she, Dante, and Clear do the job.

“I beg to differ, kid,” Dante had teased as they finally hit the road and got out of town. Clear just slapped his stomach, earning a laugh for it, and let them lapse into silence.

Clear hadn’t paid attention to how long the drive was, he’d been too busy trying to reconcile all the information he’d received that morning. Dante didn’t even know what was happening to him, but if he wasn’t turning into a demon that was fine. At least, if he wasn’t turning into one yet. His dreams were still putting him on edge too, aside from the gruesome nature of most of them, the ones where he’d interacted with his tattoo—with Parasite—made him wonder what the real sentient nature of the thing was. Could he talk to it? Could he even separate himself from it?

Well, he had confirmed that it was a Devil Arm, and therefor was still inherently a demon, that was etched into his skin and now living off of him. What an existence.

They arrived at around what seemed to be mid-afternoon. The sun was high and the ground was baking, but they still had to hike farther up the mountain after the drivable road ended. Clear took a second to focus on finding any demons around him. His tattoo didn’t even twitch.

“Didn’t Lady say this place was overrun?” he asked. Dante looked around the area.

“Might be ‘cuz it’s the day, they haven’t come out yet.”

“We should still be able to sense them, even then, right?” Clear’s brows furrowed and he continued, “it’s not unheard of for demons to appear during the day anyway.”

“Maybe they’re gonna throw us a surprise party,” Dante joked instead. He started to stride ahead on one of the hiking trails.

“Better not get separated! I can’t find you if you get lost!”

Clear bit down his urge to make a snarky comment back. He stayed alert to any demons as he made his way up the path after Dante. His tattoo didn’t even so much as twitch, and it seemed Dante was sensing as much as he was. There were supposed to countless amounts of demons. In a twenty minute hike, they had yet to see even one.

“What the hell’s going on here…” Clear muttered to himself.

They hiked on for a little longer. He bumped into Dante’s back when the older hunter stopped all of a sudden. Dante seemed to perk up a little and scan the area. Then, he turned to stare down at Clear over his shoulder.

“Feel that?”

His tattoo had been writhing since they stopped. Clear rubbed at his arms and nodded.

“Guess we found the demons.”

“Just follow me.”

Dante lead the way, guns drawn. Clear followed suit with his carbine held in both hands and finger twitching on the trigger. Dante took them off the beaten path down a steep incline, and then up again to a ridge with a cave. The sudden reaction from his tattoo made Clear’s hands tense, it took him everything to not fire a shot.

“Guess we found their hiding spot,” Clear hissed.

“Seems like. Wanna do the honors?”

“After you.”

Dante stepped into the cave with a shrug. The darkness inside barely touched his boots before the cave’s opening physically closed; what looked to be a massive wall of flesh descended from the top of the opening. Clear and Dante both jumped back out of the way and took a couple shots. Blood splashed from the wall. When it opened again, a massive glowing blue eye was staring out at them. A second later, there was a demonic roar quaking the ground.

“Let’s move!!” Clear was already hightailing it back to the motorcycle. His senses were going crazy. There were demons all around him and under him and yet there were none at all, only one massive one that shook the whole ground with its roar. Dante was close on his tail, then in an instant, ahead of him, sliding down muddy ground and weaving between trees as though he could see miles ahead of himself. Clear had a harder time keeping up especially with the way the ground trembled under him, but he didn’t slow down. He couldn’t. He couldn’t even spare a glance behind him until he was jumping onto the back of the bike as Dante drove by.

Clear finally spared a glance over his shoulder. Parts of the mountain were being thrown aside by two sets of tattered feathery wings. The yellowed feathers beat down kicking up a massive wind that almost knocked them off course. Then, out of the side of the cliff they were just at, the wings pulled a body out. Nothing human, it was comprised of three massive eyes in a triangle shape and more feathers around them, a bold and ethereal halo floating behind it. An angel, in all senses of the word, and it was coming right towards them.

“Ever seen anything like that before?!” Clear yelled over the raging winds. Dante grunted and sped up.

“Not in my life! We gotta take it down before it hits the city! Lady’ll kill me if it destroys the shopping district!”

“We don’t have time for shitty jokes! What do you propose we do!”

“You figure it out, I gotta drive!”

So much for being helpful. Clear twisted as best he could to take aim with his carbine. Like Biscione, the eyes seemed to be the weak point, so that seemed like a good place to start. His first shot would have hit the mark if it didn’t flap with a wing to deflect. Of the eight wings, four folded down to cover the eyes, the rest used to keep it afloat and beat down on them more wind.

Between the wings blocking Clear’s shots and the wind knocking his bullets off course he could barely get a shot in. Although his gun was blowing feathers off with every bullet that managed to hit, he wasn’t firing nearly fast enough to do anything meaningful. Damn it, Dante could kick his ass for it later. He yanked one of Dante’s pistols out of the holster on his hip, taking aim with the handgun and firing a barrage. He knew that Ebony and Ivory packed less of a punch than his carbine, but the faster firing rate was making it easier to time between the tornados Dante was dodging.

“Hold on kid!!”

Dante swerved around a corner, almost throwing Clear off with the momentum of it. The demon screeched above them, but it revealed its eye to him again. As the demon rounded after them, Clear re-situated himself and fired off another barrage before it could attack. The demon screeched when he nailed it in the eye. It seemed to fall back but its screech of pain echoed them. Still, it rounded the corner again with barely a scratch on it, halo visible instead around the the pupil like it was charging some kind of—

Clear’s hair stood on edge. He whipped around and gripped Dante’s waist while screaming, “lean right!”

Dante barely moved in time. A bright beam of pure energy burned down beside them, liquifying the asphalt. Dante made a noise but Clear didn’t give the time to respond. When he looked back the wing was still open and the demon wasn’t attacking.

“Your guns aren’t even scratching it! What do I do?!”

“Have you had a chance to use Dimitri’s new weapon?”

“What? No!”

“Now’s the time then!”

Another gust hit near them, knocking the bike off course. Clear held on tightly (it took every ounce of will not to squeeze the trigger and shoot Dante in the thigh by accident) as Dante realigned them.

“I don’t know how to!”

“Don’t think about it! It’s just like using Grendel, just feel it and use it!”

“Easier said than done!”

But Clear took the weapon from Dante’s back and did as he was told. Knocking the lower wing out of place was just as difficult as before. But this time, before it could fire off another beam, Clear took aim with Airistotle at the pupil. Just like Grendel… He felt that the weapon would extend, but how could he use it without the trigger?

Fuck, there was no time to think bout it. Clear made like he was going to throw the weapon, but instead of letting go he held fast. The demonic powers of it did the rest for him.

It extended from his hand to pierce the demon’s eye. A shriek tore through the sky and rattled the ground, shocking Clear enough that he forgot to pull the weapon back until Dante elbowed him in the side. He scrambled to reign it in, nearly dropping it at the force it came back to him with. Despite the buzzing in his hand, he still had two more eyes to go, and they were almost halfway back to the city.

He hissed to himself, but took out the second eye without much complaint. As he was getting ready to fire on the pair of wings guarding the top eye, the demon flapped all four of its wings at once. It had been going pretty fast before, but the way it suddenly became a spinning ball of feathers that dive-bombed them was almost too fast for him to see. He knew ducking wouldn’t help but he did it anyway on reflex—almost a fatal mistake, as Rebellion’s blade passed by his forehead when Dante raised her to attack.

With its remaining eye, the demon fired another set of beams at them. Dante weaved between them like he was avoiding traffic on a freeway. If there wasn’t so much adrenaline running through him Clear knew he’d be sick.

He raised his head from Dante’s back again to see the damage. Behind them, where there was once asphalt and road was now a puddle of tar. Sinking into it was one of the tattered yellow wings. The demon itself had a gash in it, dug by Rebellion, that only scraped above the eye but had managed to slice one of the wings off there. And now with it in front of them Clear had an even easier time shooting down the remaining wing.

The demon seemed to be getting desperate now; it was battering them with wind left and right, enough that Dante was actually struggling to keep control. The other two eyes had long since shattered, now looking like fractured glass. The demon had been screaming nonstop for so long Clear was barely hearing it now.

“Hey! We’re less than a mile from the city! Take it out!” Dante yelled when there was a lull in tornadoes.

“Easier said than done!” Clear snapped back, but he was aiming with his carbine for the base of the wing.

“We really gotta work on your aim! Just take it out with Airistotle!”

That… Was actually brilliant. Clear had been focusing so hard on avoiding tornadoes he hadn’t even considered the possibility that Dimitri’s spear could potentially blast straight through them. And he knew how to use the weapon, it wouldn’t be hard…

He could see the city coming on faster than he’d like. So he had one shot to do it. With a steady exhale he extended Airistotle towards the base of the wing he’d been firing at. The spear was steady enough to pierce through the winds. It nailed the base of the wing and chopped it clean off. As the demon was recoiling enough to fire at them, Clear sucked in another breath and tossed the spear again. But this time, something felt different. The way the energy flowed from his hand, into Airistotle, like he was making it more powerful—the demon beat with its wings a tornado between them. It didn't even feel like a worry. As Airistotle extended he physically felt his tattoo's power rush into it. There wasn't any pain when his new wings extended from his shoulder, nor when the bolt of pure demonic energy shot down his inked arm and followed along with the spear's blade. It pierced clean through the tornado, the wing as it was closing, the eye, to the back of the demon's body.

Almost underwhelmingly, the corpse crumbled to dust. Clear recalled Airistotle to his side as his wings curled back into his body. There wasn't any pain this time, but he felt more drained than usual. He flopped heavily back onto his seat to hold onto Dante again. They passed under the remains a few seconds later. For a moment it was like they were driving through fresh snow. But as they cleared the dust cloud and made it to the city’s entrance, Clear reached up to pluck a glowing golden orb out of the sky.

* * *

 

"What even was that?!" Clear demanded as they pulled into Arms Race's parking lot.

"Hey, you were the one who did it, don't ask me," Dante just shrugged. He cut the engine but barely had to wait for Clear to jump off. The kid was pacing immediately. As Dante was reorganizing his weapons (he'd kick the brat's ass for using Ivory without permission) he noticed something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up; but, as soon as he felt it, it was gone.

"It was like—a shot of pure demon went straight through me. And then it made Airistotle stronger. And the wing showed up again, so... Are you one-hundred percent sure I'm not turning into a demon?!"

"Kid, I told you that was false advertising. You can't become a demon because of a tattoo. It's probably like Trish and Dimitri said, you've just got a Devil Arm that gives you a Devil Trigger."

"I have to ask Dimitri about this. Maybe his know-how of alchemy can help, since he's the one who knows about the circles."

Dante almost considered using Trickster to catch up, the kid was moving so fast. But suddenly Clear stopped at the door. When Dante moved to go in, Clear's hand shot out to stop him.

“The door’s open.”

"So he's home?"

“No, he’s the one who’s insistent on keeping it locked at night.”

Dante looked a little closer. The lights were off, and when he looked closely, he could see that the lock had been busted clean off the door. The strange feeling that made the hair on the back of his neck rise made sense. Electricity. There had been a fight here. Trish had been defending Dimitri.

“The lock—“

Clear was running inside a second later. The lights flicked on and Dante could hear him calling Dimitri's name, but that was of little concern to him. He was on high alert to try and find her, calling her name while listening for her telltale click of heels.

He heard the sound as Clear exited the warehouse. She had rounded the corner slowly, leaning against the wall. Dante was at her side to support her instantly. Although she put on a brave face it was clear how heavily she leaned on him when he offered a hand around her shoulders to steady her. At first she didn’t seem to be heavily injured, just a black eye and a few other cuts and scrapes that were already starting to heal. But when Dante got her to lean against his motorcycle facing away from the door, Clear could see the extent of the damage. A massive gash stretched across her back. Not deep, but big. From her right shoulder almost down to the top of her left thigh. He’d never seen her get seriously injured before, so it surprised him that little shocks of electricity sparked across her skin over the wound occasionally.

“Are you alright?” Dante asked, serious. There was a worried look on his face that Clear had never seen before.

“I will be, probably,” Trish huffed back. “If my flawless skin scars I’ll get you back tenfold.”

“What happened?”

“Someone got a lucky shot with the scythe. I was overwhelmed… Clear, I’m sorry, I…”

"Dimitri's... been kidnapped?"

Trish nodded.


	12. Mission 12: Malacoda and Minos

**_Earlier That Day_ **

Dimitri had retreated to his worktable as soon as the hunters had left, and promptly busied himself with staring into space. There was so much to think about. Not like he hadn’t had three whole days to himself to do that, but most of his thoughts had been preoccupied with worrying about Adrian.

It had been a long time since Dimitri had seen him so shaken. The only other times he could really place a similar reaction to _anything_ was when they’d first met, and again when Clear had killed Grendel. Hell, the guy was so used to meeting demons face to face that watching horror movies with him was _boring_ because he never reacted. But it still worried Dimitri that he was so shaken and unsure of himself.

He thought they both knew everything about the tattoo, but clearly he was wrong. Dimitri knew the basic components well enough. Clear knew how to use its powers. And yet, they knew absolutely _nothing_ about how to really harness it. Researching demonic languages and old curses hadn’t even helped him. It wasn’t like any existing curse or Devil Arm anyone had seen before.

Trish did say she was going to be sticking around. She hadn’t come in with him, but she was in the area, maybe he could go find her and ask. Dimitri didn’t know much about her but he knew she was the most demon of all of them, so she might have had more knowledge on otherworldly weapons.

Dimitri stood up to find her. Promptly, there was a clap of noise from outside. Dimitri recognized it as thunder, but he hadn’t heard any rain on the roof. It was the middle of autumn, they weren’t due to have rain for another couple months. Another clap startled him further out of his thoughts.

With a shaky breath, he started heading towards the front of the shop to see what all the commotion was. He passed by the shelving that separated the entrance from his workshop. There was a second where he considered going to grab a weapon first, but he didn’t even have the time—

The door was kicked open. Four people stormed in, all wearing suits and glasses. One dove for him immediately, while the other three split up to search Arms Race. Dimitri shrieked in shock and the speed he was restrained, barely registering the pain shooting up his shoulder from his arm being twisted back until he was being held against his assailant with an arm around his neck. The woman was much much stronger than him, taller too, and was able to lift him slightly off the floor to lessen his struggling.

“I found it!” one grunted out. Another woman, who had ducked into the weapons storage section. The two others came from the back of the shop and crowded in with her. A second later, the three were carrying out Mundus Cereris across their shoulders. There was no exchange of words. They marched out and Dimitri was released. He tried to scramble to his feet but the woman grabbed him again and threw him over her shoulder to carry him out too.

When she stepped outside, the electricity in the air made his hair stand on end. He wasn’t given any time to even consider how it got there, not when he heard Trish cry out. As he was carted away he was given a clear view of her collapsing, surrounded by people—or maybe demons, they all seemed to have horns and claws and just _god_ there were so many _—_ blood spraying from her back. Two of the ones who’d taken the scythe were moving away from her to pile into a truck, but some were staying behind as if to finish the job.

Dimitri called for Trish. He was shoved into the back seat of one of the many parked cars and the woman—demon—kidnapper climbed in next to him. He tried to stop her, or scramble out, or do anything really. It put him in a bad position that allowed her to elbow his middle and knock the breath out of him. He collapsed into her lap. 

He felt the car start and pull out of the parking lot. A crack of thunder followed after them, shaking the car but barely doing anything more. The car sped up as he finally blacked out.

* * *

 

Dimitri was thrown onto a soft carpet. He’d been roughly shaken awake, given water, and then blindfolded and restrained at the wrists. After being manhandled onto a boat (it had been yelled, and he’d felt the rocking under his unsteady feet) he was taken to another ship about a 15 minute straight ride from land. The rocking of the ship was getting the best of him, but he bit down his sea sickness as best he could. His stomach hurt from where he’d been elbowed. His shoulder was now sore from where it had been tweaked earlier on in the day. He’d been chewing at his cheek so hard copper was all that filled his mouth. 

The blindfold was ripped off. Light flooded his vision but he was able to quickly blink away the blindness. The room he was in was warmly lit in gold and white, lights all around him. One entire wall was comprised of floor to ceiling windows, outside of which he could see the sun setting. All of the furniture in the room was white. The floors and table he was in front of were a medium colored wood, well kept and varnished as if they’d never seen use.

“Wh-where—where am I?”

“He’s coherent! Surely I thought you would have screamed first.”

The man who spoke had an unfortunately pleasant voice; rich, easy on the ears, soothing. Dimitri looked up at him. He was tall, not quite as tall as Dante, and not nearly as broad either. He was dressed in a white suit, black button up worn slightly open around his collar. His hair was light colored, styled out of his face, but not slicked enough to lose any waves or volume. The strangest thing he wore was a watch: it had a bright orange face and a stone band. Dimitri recognized the materials instantly. It was made of the same things he’d made Mundus Cereris with.

“Now the imp’s got your tongue? I won’t bite you.” 

“Enough playing around, Malacoda. Just tell him what he needs to know and get him out of my sight.”

There was another man standing slightly behind Malacoda. He was tall and imposing, though thin compared to his white-suited associate. He wore a violet suit with a fabric that could only be described as scaly; the jacket he was wearing over his shoulders made him cut an imposing figure with the fur around the collar and the sleeves and three tails draping behind him. His eyes were obscured by glasses thin-framed and professional glasses, and his dark hair was slicked back out of his face—probably not to obscure the strange purple mark in the center of his forehead. He wore black gloves too, although the tips of the fingers were sharpened like claws.

“Ah, Minos, always such a downer—“

“Where am I!” Dimitri asked again, much louder this time. The nausea in his gut rendered him stationary. Hopefully it would fade soon so he could try to run. 

Malacoda chuckled down at him. “Welcome, welcome! Even if I tell you, you won’t recognize it. But don’t worry, you’re here on a business trip! All your food and lodgings will be taken care of by your’s truly.”

The more he spoke, the more tense Dimitri became. He started to recognize the voice as he listened. This was the man that had called him weeks ago to commission the scythe. The man who knew everything about him and his family. About Clear.

“You’re my… my contractor. For Mundis Cereris.”

“He is sharp isn’t he! I was wondering when you’d realize,” Malacoda chortled. He kneeled down next to Dimitri and tilted his chin up with a finger. 

“Since we know so much about each other, I assume we’re on first name basis? You can call me Jason if you’d like. Malacoda is just so formal.” 

Dimitri twisted his head out of Malacoda’s hold. Instead of answering, he hissed, “why did you kidnap me?” 

The man behind Malacoda, Minos, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. The light from the setting sun caught the lenses, turning them orange.

“Hurry up, our lord is getting restless. The less time you waste here, the less time Dante Sparda and the other pest have time to find us.” 

“Dante? And Clear? What about them, what are you gonna—“

“Don’t fret, don’t fret, Dimitri! I brought you here for another job.”

“Tell me what you’re gonna do to Clear!”

“Nothing, if you cooperate!” Malacoda laughed. He tossed his head back and stood up to move away from Dimitri. 

“I—fuck you, fine! What do you want from me?!” 

“Perfect!” Malacoda sounded all too giddy, like he hadn't just threatened Dimitri into the perfect position to checkmate him but had instead got him there willingly. He waved to his men as he gave them directions.

“Begin preparations to find someone in our ranks that can properly use the scythe. And as for you, Dimitri, you’ll be escorted to your new office, where you’ll begin fitting my men with your weapons.”

“What—my weapons? Why?”

“You’ll know in due time, my dear. For now all you need to know is how many weapons I need built. We can work out a materials list and price sheet to be sure we get you everything at a good cost.”

“Answer me! What am I making you weapons for?!”

Malacoda tipped his head back to laugh again. “You really think you can demand answers?” 

“You really think you can tell me what to do?!”

Dimitri felt brave saying it, until the woman next to him grabbed him by the back of the head and slammed his face into the coffee table. His head spun when he sat back up, a headache piercing through any and all rational thoughts. Malacoda’s words just went swimming through his consciousness.

“I hired you to do a job, and you will continue to do that job until I’m satisfied. That is, if you want to live.”

“S-sure. Yeah. Sure, okay—“ Dimitri mumbled, but the headache and nausea got to him, and he promptly passed out.

* * *

 

He woke up in a workshop this time. He couldn’t tell how far below deck he was or where he was in the ship. But all the lighting was artificial, and he had been given liberal space to do his work. Despite that, the room had only one small bed and toilet, both in clear view of the single door. Talk about awkward. 

Food had been left out for him. Judging by not only Malacoda’s suit, but the way he spoke and the absolute _feast_ that had been presented to him, Dimitri assumed the guy came from money. But what would a rich kid need to do with demons? The Minos guy had seemed to be an accountant, and all the other demons were hired guards… But Minos had mentioned a ‘lord,’ and they wanted to deal with Dante or something…

 _Do enjoy the feast. You’ll need to be in tip-top shape for work tomorrow! A lot needs to get done in a short amount of time!_ read the note left with the food. It smelled amazing. Butter and garlic and other spices, the fresh vegetables and meats, even the water in the glass looked clearer. Dimitri’s stomach growled.

He turned away from the food and curled himself up on the bed. His wrists were raw from the ropes earlier and his head still ached. At least the nausea had gone down. But he couldn’t accept the food. He couldn’t show anything other than defiance towards Malacoda, at least not until he figured out what the man wanted, and could guarantee Adrian’s safety.

Dimitri let his mind wander until he was on the verge of sleep. Maybe an hour or two had passed, he wasn’t sure, but he was startled awake by the door opening. He tried not to give away that he’d been awake but it didn’t work when he’d already jumped.

“Get up and eat. You need your energy for tomorrow," Minos commanded. Although his voice was soft, it carried, and his tone held a dangerous edge to it. Despite himself, Dimitri rose to his feet and went to the table. Even as he sat down, he resisted the will to eat by clenching his fists tightly in his lap. 

"How did you— I didn't want to get up." 

"You should eat." 

"I don't want to." 

"Eat, boy." 

The edge was in his voice again, pressing down around Dimitri's mind. The echo of the command made his head ache again, so much that he started eating just to see if it would stop. When it did, he continued tentatively. 

"How are you doing that?" 

"It's my power." 

Minos definitely wasn't social like Malacoda, but he was certainly forthcoming with information. Dimitri couldn't tell if it was cockiness or just him being casual.

"Your... power?"

"Of course. You work with demons, powers are things they have, no?"

"I guess..." Dimitri mumbled. He was silent as he nibbled his food. It was  _good,_ sure, but he just wanted something comforting. Something that Adrian made. He had to find a way off the ship and back to the city; maybe if Minos was being particularly social Dimitri could force some information out of him. 

"Hey, why are you working with Malacoda?" 

"Direct aren't you? Our Lord Mundus is seeking another chance to conquer the human realm. Malacoda is a means to an end. Although he is a fickle brat with too much time and too much money, he is a resource, and our lord has appreciated my work with him,” Minos answered.  

"You don't really like him, do you," Dimitri replied. 

“He is the lowest of the low."

"Why don't you just... use your powers to control him? You could make him give you all his money or something."

"Humans resist my powers so. But offering them a little incentive gets the same result. A man with many vices is easily exploitable.”

Dimitri let the conversation settle. It was easy to piece together what Minos' powers were by the way he talked and what he had experienced. Whenever he escaped from the room, as long as he kept a cool head he could probably deal with Minos' mind controlling abilities fine— 

“You… are strange to me," Minos suddenly said. He stared down is nose at Dimitri, the light catching his glasses again to turn them white. "You have the weakest will of any human I’ve seen, and yet…”

The echoing kicked up in Dimitri's head again. _Bow, bow, bow,_ it cried. It became so loud and invasive so quickly he had to cover his ears. If he screamed, he couldn't hear it. His body tried to move again on its own but he fought the urge. Meeting himself half way, he took one step from his chair and fell to his knees, fighting to glare up at Minos. Then, in a flash, it was over, and he was able to lean back against the chair and rest his head.

“You still fight me. I can tell, it’s because you have something to live for. Someone to protect. How sweet.” Minos turned away and retreated to the door. Before he left, he tossed another threat over his shoulder, “if he becomes a nuisance, he _will_ fall to your weapons at the hands of our men.”

* * *

 

_**Currently** _

“How’d this happen?”

Clear was sitting behind Trish at the picnic table to treat her back. Dante was sitting across from them, absently resting a hand on one of the weapons in front of him. The table was piled high: Dante's sword, three guns, Clear's daggers, and the new feathered axe they'd received just outside of town. The open space was taken up by medical supplies. 

"A group of cars and trucks pulled up shortly after you left. Most of the demons that came for Dimitri were weak, but there were just so many—" Trish hissed a breath at a particularly deep stab of Clear's needle at her back. He mumbled an apology before she continued. 

“There were just too many of them. A group of demons attacked us, and while I was dealing with them out here, a couple snuck in. One grabbed Dimitri, a couple grabbed the scythe and hit me when I was focused somewhere else. I had to retreat and I couldn't..." 

“They attacked you with the scythe? I thought only Clear could use it." Dante pursed his lips, hand on his chin like he was thinking hard.

"Like I said, lucky shot. It took two of them to lift it," Trish shrugged. 

"Don't move, I'll fuck up," Clear grunted. His fingers had been meticulous in stitching up her back, even if the would was grafting back together as he did it. Dante figured he just needed something to do with his hands. 

"Any idea where they went?" Dante asked instead. 

"No. They didn't even have license plates to track, and the car models were generic." 

Clear clicked his tongue as he pulled away from Trish to restring his needle. Dante sat up a little straighter to face him. 

"What? You got something to say?" 

"No." 

"Aw come on. You look like you're itchin' to join the conversation." 

"I got nothing, okay?! Dimitri's kidnapped and we have nothing to go on except it was people in suits and they all drive generic cars. The only thing I can think about is—" Clear threw his supplies against the table and let his fist fall against it, exhaling tightly. Trish placed a hand on his shoulder but he shrugged away from her. 

“It's my fault. I should have realized the mission was suspicious. Why would someone from a town over specifically request us. It's just too convenient they'd kidnap him while I was gone..." 

"Don't beat yourself up. Dante specifically wanted me to stay, even though the contractor wanted me  _and_ Lady to investigate something. I wasn't expecting them to be able to use the scythe anyway, so that was an oversight on my part," Trish soothed. When she used that tone of voice she really did remind Dante of his mother. 

Clear just let out a frustrated sigh. Dante shook his head and sighed too. Even Trish sighed, and silence fell over them for a bit while Clear returned to patching up Trish's back. 

"Well, them's the breaks. We gotta move forward. Clear, if you've got some pent-up energy, what's say we test out this new weapon?" 

"I'm not in the mood. You go for it if you want to," Clear said. Dante was trying to be positive but the mood was so grim he was finding it hard to stay even the slightest bit jovial. 

"We'll get some rest tonight. Tomorrow we'll catch Lady up and start searching for any leads," Trish offered instead. 

"Okay. Okay, yeah. Sounds good."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OHOHO finally the main villain is introduced. If Minos seems unimportant, HE IS. Until DLC 2, I literally just needed to set him up here so he didn't really come out of nowhere. I'm also trying to balance him, because he really is the one pulling all of Malacoda's strings lol 
> 
> Actually, I think I should do a quick note on everyone's names while we're here: 
> 
> Adrian "Clear" Cassius: Adrian means 'sea' or 'water,' I don't remember where I pulled this name but I went with it because at first his shit was revolving around ice but then that changed and the name just kind of stuck. Cassius in Devine Comedy is one of the men who murdered Julius Caesar; Clear was initially a place-holder name that also stuck, and he's just been using it because he can't actually stand his own name. Cassius is his father's last name and hates it, but he keeps it and Adrian because in a fucked up way it's a source of comfort for him. He's really not happy with any of his names right now, he just hasn't really found a good alternative that he likes. 
> 
> Dimitri Ulysses: Dimitri was just a name I wanted to use LOL Ulysses, if I remember right, retained his greed/lust for knowledge even after he died which goes with D's thirst for knowledge of alchemy and other demonic stuff lmao 
> 
> Jason Malacoda: Jason was just all around not a great guy in Devine Comedy, so it kind of fit for a villain's name. Malacoda was the leader of the demons that guarded the eighth circle of hell, his name means 'evil tail.'
> 
> Minos: The judge that decides what circle damned souls shall go to. His abilities are less based off judgement and more based off control, but I suppose 'using mind control to make someone do something' is the same energy as 'go to that circle sinner' lmao I just needed a chill guy to balance Malacoda's chaotic energy. 
> 
> For the weapons, almost all of them have Italian names because I was initially going to make Clear half-Itialian on his mother's side. At least, that was until I decided where in canon his parents are from. But the names were cool and I'd used them for so long I just stuck with it lmaooo The weapons are: 
> 
> > Poisoned Teeth, Tatzelwurm: Clear's base weapon, based off a poisonous cat snake as Dante says.  
> > The Ravenous Hunger, Grendel: Based off a giant that devours endlessly.  
> > Viper Brace, Regalia: Every game needs a punchy weapon.  
> > The Underworld’s Key, Mundus Cereris: Big boi scythe, literally made from Mundus' remains.  
> > Dimitri’s Creation, Airistotle: Mostly based off pole dancing, and the name is a pun on Aristotle because I could fit 'air' into it LMAO  
> > Torrid Typhoon, Biscione: Biscione is a viper used mostly in emblems. She has heat powers to pair with her sister Borda.  
> > Destruction’s Herald, Ravenna: The axe they just got! The name comes from the 'Monster of Ravenna,' which was basically just a child born with a birth defect and the church got all up in arms because aaahhh demons smh  
> > Tears of Frigidity, Marabbecca: Based off a witch that appears at night/in the fog and eats children. Has ice powers to pair with her sister Biscione. 
> 
> There are a couple weapons that didn't get into the story called Prototype Firearm: Dualshock and Reality's Bane: Skeleton Scissors. They may or may not show up later idk I just liked the names haha Anyway if you read this far THANKS, I'm aiming for a double update today.


	13. Mission 13: Recounting the Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS THE DOUBLE UPDATE I'VE BEEN WAITING TO POST SINCE DAY ONE. I've had this chapter written for SO FUCKING LONG, it's literally JUST BACKSTORY and the style I wrote this was really fun to try!! Idk if it worked out so if you have any feedback on it I'd love to hear it!!
> 
> I looked up guandao at first but realized I got the name of the blade wrong later. I’m not 100% sure if Dao just means sword since there’s a lot of Chinese swords that are like _______dao, so I’m kind of using it from the European point of “any blade that looks like this is a Dao.” Slightly curved at the end but mostly flat, though not a cutlass. 
> 
> Also Clear doesn’t eat his pizza crusts, natural selection is coming for him. 
> 
> ALSO THE SPIRIT OF PATTI CAMEO IS IN THIS CHAPTER LOL YOU'LL KNOW IT WHEN YOU SEE IT HAHAHHA

Dante found Clear towards the outskirts of town, on a main street that was less than busy after the sun went down. He had the new axe, Ravenna, in one hand, his carbine in the other, his shoulders rising and falling with every heavy breath he took. His knives had been thrown into demons, one disintegrating on a wall nearby, the other embedded in the street where its poison was starting to corrode the cobblestone. Clear’s arms were bloody, no doubt from where he’d absorbed demonic remains. Since Dante didn’t feel any more demons around, he stooped by the knife in the ground and plucked it from the bubbling mess of liquid brick.

“You’re gonna make a pothole like this,” he said to no one really.

Clear flinched, snapping his head towards Dante. With a swing of Ravenna he created a gust of wind, but it stopped as soon as it came. Clear let the weapon drop so one of its blades buried into the ground.

“I—I didn’t even hear you.” 

“This was supposed to be my job, thanks for doing the dirty work,” Dante said instead. He moved to the other knife and pulled it from some demon’s flesh as it turned to dust.

“I was… just in the area…”

Dante looked closely at him when he stepped over to return his weapons. Clear didn’t have any deep wounds, almost all of them being shallow cuts to his arms and shoulders. There were two pricks to the right of his chest, but even those didn’t seem to bother him. Dante shook his head and passed back Tatzelwurm.

“This is barely even near Arms Race. Let me guess, you were distracting yourself?”

After a long bout of silence, Clear finally sighed. Yup, right on the money. His shoulders slumped, and when he reached up to take his weapons he winced while moving right arm. Maybe the pinpricks were worse than they looked.

“I can’t sit still. I hate being in the shop right now. How do you stand living alone?”

Dante chuckled at him, shaking his head. “I don’t live in a warehouse. Hey, come back to Devil May Cry, the couch ain’t half bad on your back.”

“I don’t—Dante, I don’t have _time_ to pal around with you, I have to keep searching—“ 

“And search we will. But these—“ Dante poked at Clear’s shoulder, earning a hiss as the kid retreated—“Aren’t gonna heal overnight. Not without some help.” 

“And what kind of help you got up your sleeve, huh?” 

“Pizza, for one.”

Clear gave a resigned sigh. He allowed Dante to pick up and carry Ravenna for him as they started exiting the alley, back the way Dante had come.

“Well, if that’s your solution to everything, I guess it’ll do for now.”

* * *

 

The shop was surprisingly cozy after they got the floor cleaned up. Clear had even managed to find all of the pool balls. While Dante ordered pizza Clear managed to consolidate the mess on the table in the corner to his desk, leaving whatever was there for Dante to deal with later. Though he’d been in the shop multiple times, it was always just for a quick visit to demand Dante get off his ass. He’d never taken the time to really examine it, and he definitely hadn’t expected it to have such a homey feel to it, what with the warm lighting making the brown and reds of the room feel softer.

The jukebox in the corner had a dent in it. Clear wondered if it still even played. Near it, on a bar stool by the jukebox, was a large pastel pink teddy bear. It had a frilly bonneton it’s head tied in a little bow in front. Clear couldn’t fathom why Dante had it, it might have been a gift or maybe he was just secretly into cute things? That was a can of worms Clear didn’t want to unpack. He also noted the stairs to a second floor, but he didn’t want to pry too much assuming that was where most of the living areas were. Under the stairs was a door that piqued Clear’s interest, solely because of how many locks were on it—there was even a pair of chains crossed over it to keep it shut.

Behind Dante’s desk was a wall of displayed weapons. Mostly guns, Clear didn’t pay too much attention to those either. Next to it was Trish’s sword—what had she called it, the Demon Sword Sparda?—mounted to the wall. He wondered where she and Lady stayed, if they were upstairs or if they had places of their own. 

“Al~right, pizza’s on the way, should take maybe twenty minutes,” Dante said as he emerged from the door on the other side of the room, opposite to the locked one. In one hand he held a bottle of Jack, in the other he held a pair of glasses with ice cubes in them. As he got to the table he placed the glasses down and poured a bit of whiskey into both. Clear took the one passed to him.

“Sounds good. Hey, thanks. For letting me stay here tonight,” Clear said. He swirled the whiskey in the glass; it was such a pretty color, just a little lighter than D’s eyes. Clear bit his lip at that thought. He was supposed to out searching for him, not staring at a glass of alcohol and contemplating dealing with a hangover the next morning.

As if Dante heard his frustrations, he kicked the back of his heel onto his desk with a loud enough crack to make Clear jump. The older hunter chuckled at him, but quieted when he didn’t receive one of Clear’s usual disapproving looks. 

“You’ll find him,” he said.

“I… I hope I will,” Clear answered. Then, with little regard for _what_ he was drinking, he took a big glug from his glass. The alcohol burned his throat and he was coughing a minute later, making Dante almost worry that he should have given the kid some instructions.

“You ever drank before?”

“A little. Sorry. Maybe it was a bad idea to drink.”

“Take it slow. Want some water?”

“Later.”

Clear put the glass to the side and kicked off his shoes, curling into the arm of the couch. He felt like a helpless kid again. It had been at least a week since the kidnapping. He’d spent so much of his free time debating where D could be, scouring every inch of the city, even checking the ruins where Mundus Cereris almost killed him, he really wasn’t sure what else he could do. So many intrusive thoughts were swirling through his head. Half of them were his own voice, half of them were a faded memory of his father he wished he could lock in a box and bury somewhere. He shouldn’t have drank, his anxieties were just getting worse. 

Fuck. He rubbed at his eyes with his palms. He hoped Dante wouldn’t say anything about a couple tears slipping out. It wasn’t a bad thing to cry, it just was embarrassing for someone to see him openly bawling. Luckily, Dante didn’t say anything to him; when Clear peeked at him to check, Dante seemed to be absorbed in his own thoughts, absently rocking his chair back and forth.

“If you—if you’re not careful you’re gonna fall.” He cursed the break in his voice, but was glad Dante didn’t say anything to him. The guy apparently _did_ know the right times not to mock someone.

“Hasn’t happened yet,” Dante said. Clear snorted. 

“It will happen one day.”

“That’s the day I’ll stop then.”

They lapsed into silence until there was a knock on the door. Clear started getting up but Dante was already at the door and opening it. Clear couldn’t help but chuckle at the inappropriate use of his Trickster Style. Dante asked about his tab as he took the pizza, and bid the deliveryman a good night as he left. Moving back to his desk, he presented the pizza with a ‘ta-dah!’

“Eat however much you want, kid, my treat!” He said with a grin. Clear wiped his eyes again before coming over to take a slice. He examined the food in front of him, something was off here.

“Nice treat, but where’s the olives?”

“Are you crazy? No olives!” Dante balked at him.

“Are _you_ crazy? Olives are a staple!” Clear argued back. 

“Then I’ll just finish this on my own. See if I ever treat you to good food again!” Dante said. He scooped up a slice and started chowing down, leaning against the desk with crossed arms like he was pretending to pout.

Clear took a slice too and leaned against the opposite edge of the desk. His eyes traveled to the chained up door again while he chewed.

“Hey, Dante, what is that anyway?”

“Hm?” he mumbled around his food.

“The door back there. Why so many locks?” 

Dante swallowed before going on. “Oh, that? It leads to the basement. All the Devil Arms I’ve collected are stored down there.”

“How many have you collected?” 

“I’ll show you sometime. And D, too, he’d probably go crazy over them all.”

“Yeah. Right, if we find him…” 

“ _When_ we find him,” Dante corrected, but let them fall back into silence to finish eating.

Sometime later, Clear wasn’t keeping track, they’d finished more than half of the pizza and had retreated to their previous seats. Dante was surprisingly good at keeping the conversation light, although Clear couldn’t help some of the thoughts creeping up when there was a pause in conversation. He kept flipping between giggling at nothing and wanting to cry, all of his stress coming in and out of focus depending on if Dante was speaking to him or not. Maybe he was just forcing himself to laugh, that’s what people did when they were drunk, right? Laugh? Party? Riot? Clear leaned his head back against the couch; he’d taken his hair down from his ponytail a while ago.

“Hah, are you a lightweight?” Dante asked. Clear couldn’t help but giggle into his glass and nod.

“I guess I am! Maybe I’m just dehydrated.” Immediately after saying that, Clear chugged the rest of his glass, holding it out to Dante for more. After a second of putting on a brave face be finally coughed, taking a couple of deep breathes as if trying to soothe the burn in his throat. Dante took the glass from him so he could lay down on the couch. He was thinking about Dimitri again, how they’d been in this position once with Clear handing him water. No, that wasn’t helping at all.  

“Whiskey’s a sipping drink,” Dante said.

“Don’t wanna sip.”

“Well I don’t wanna take shots so water for you it is.”

Before Dante had finished his sentence, Clear spoke up again, “I just wanna forget, for a minute. That ev’rything’s shit right now and D’s gone. You think he’s still okay?”

Dante looked at Clear, but the kid was staring off somewhere else. His face was already tinged pink and his eyes misty. Weather that was from the burn of the alcohol or from thinking about Dimitri, Dante couldn’t tell; he suspected it was a little of both. He sighed and moved to get Clear his water.

“You told me he could take care of himself. I bet he’s making a plan to bust himself out right now.” 

“Yeah. Yeah… You’re right… But what if he’s not…?”

“Don’t think about it too much. You wanted to forget about it for a moment, yeah? Talk to me about something else.”

Dante returned and handed the water off to Clear. It was strange to him, he’d never really been confronted with mortality, seeing as he couldn’t die and not many of his friends would let themselves. He knew a fair amount of humans, and he supposed what he felt at one time, about his mother and her death, was what they must have felt like often. Especially with their line of work being as dangerous as it was Clear probably thought about how he or someone he loved could die due to one wrong move every day. Dante was almost glad he didn’t live with that fear.

“Hey, since we’re finally talking over drinks, let’s swap stories. Tell me about your mentor.”

It took him a minute to refocus and gather his thoughts, but then Clear’s eyes brightened and he giggled to himself. To not look at Dante he talked into his glass, “Oh man, you’re great. You’re the least shitty teacher to ever teach me anything. Except my mom. She taught me how to cook. But damn, you’re so bad at this but, so good. I don’t know, man. I learn so much from you. I have fun learning from you. It’s great.”

Dante raised an eyebrow. A rambly, emotional drunk, who liked olives on pizza but had thrown all his crusts back in the box? What a weird kid. It made Dante chuckle under his breath.

“I’m flattered you feel that way! But I wasn’t talking about me. I meant your old teacher.”

“Oh. Her.” Clear’s expression soured, his nose wrinkling and brows furrowing like earlier. He took a sip of water and continued, “my old man was shit so I ran away from home and met her by chance on the road. She trained me up, taught me to fight, gave me this shitty tattoo, and made me kill her. You know how fucked up that is? I have to live with her blood on my hands. You don’t kill humans, but you know how it feels, right? You can imagine it, right?”

A sharp pain twisted in Dante’s chest. The thought of Vergil was gone as soon as it came. He nodded to shake away any surfacing memories, he could think back on them later.

“Why’d she do it?”

“Claimed she was some ‘sacrifice’ to the Sparda in my veins. But it was just like, the tattoo or whatever. She always rambled about some weird research, about demon weapons and making them usable by humans for The Order and blah, blah, blah, I never paid attention. All I know is that Tatzelwurm made the tattoo hungry, and her blood made it ravenous.”

“What does that even mean?” 

“Oh, hell if I know! It yells at me, for food sometimes, and it wouldn’t shut up for weeks. Wanted more, more, more, more demons, more humans, more of me. It grew on it’s own, you know? Look, it used to only be here—“ he made a motion up and down his left forearm. “—But now look at it.”

He had his shirt off a second later, displaying the new the ink spread across his skin. Though Dante had seen a lot of it on Clear’s arms, he hadn't seen the tattoo in full since it'd grown. It pulsed between red and black, radiating from the center of his upper back, across his shoulders and even up his neck, and down both arms. The center design was his wings surrounding crossed knives—Dante recognized Tatzelwurm—and extending from beneath the wings were sleeves of scales. Any nodes from the alchemy circles on his forearms had been weaved through other designs like orbs and flames and bands. It covered almost the entirety of his skin, down to his knuckles and even over his palms, and was symmetrical on both sides. Towards his hands the tattoo seemed to be colored a light green, as though it was a normal tattoo and was fading. 

“At least it knew the kinds of things you were into,” Dante said. If he really focused on it, his father’s blood was faintly radiating from the tattoo. It was a surprisingly steady pulse of energy though; between what Clear’s mentor had given him and what the tattoo had absorbed of Dante’s blood, it must have gotten more powerful since he’d recovered. 

“Did she mention where she got the blood from?”

“Dunno. She came from this island called Fortune or something, got it off some kid there. I try to put the small details of her out of my mind.” Clear slipped his shirt back on and flopped back onto the couch as he spoke.

Dante would have to keep it in mind though. He didn’t want to think about it right now, but it would definitely come up again later. Someone else with his father’s blood… they would be important eventually, he was sure of it.

“She called it… an Amalgam, originally. Its base component is regular old tattoo ink, but she apparently mixed it with liquified Amalgam parts, or just the blood. The Amalgam ate everything else that she threw in it, including Sparda’s blood, and part of me. I can feel it sometimes. That bit I’m missing. It just floats around behind me like it’s almost there but it’s really not.”

“What are you missing? You seem pretty whole to me.” 

Clear shrugged as best he could from his position on the couch. “I think it just took my blood. But sometimes it feels like my heart beats behind me, almost like its not mine.”

“You think maybe it actually gave you something?”

“Whaddya mean?”

Dante clicked his tongue. He took a sip of his whiskey, trying to think of the best way to phrase it. “My demon half. Sometimes it feels like it’s just barely part of me, following behind me and waiting to be let in when I Devil Trigger. You get used to the feeling after awhile. Maybe it’s only skin deep, but you might have a bit of demon in you now too.”

Clear pursed his lips. After a long bout of silence, he said, “Huh. Can’t believe I’m beauty _and_ the beast.” 

They both laughed at that, Dante the louder of the two. He settled back into his desk chair and took another sip of his drink, taking his time to taste it before letting it slide down his throat. He could feel what Clear was describing, the almost out-of-body heartbeat of his demon half synced with his own, but maybe he’d reached a point where he found it comforting. The whiskey warmed his stomach. It had been a while since he drank it with company.

“So. How about Dimitri, how’d you two meet?”

“You ready for a long story?” Clear quipped. “I need more booze if you’re gonna make me tell it.”

“You sure you _can_ tell it if you drink more?” Dante said, snarky. Clear gave him a half-hearted glare.

“I’ll be fine, dad, I don’t want a lot.”

“Dad!” Dante guffawed at him. But he complied and refilled Clear’s other glass, pushing it towards him. 

“Well then son, tell your story.”

“Gross, don’t make this weird,” Clear sighed as he sat up and took another drink. He swirled the cup in his hands, watching the ice spin gently. “Where to being…

“I was fourteen when I met my teacher, sixteen when she gave me the tattoo, and left her a little after I turned eighteen. I was on the road for about a week and a half before I met D. When I killed her, my teacher cut up my shoulder pretty bad in the fight, and the entire time I was moving my tattoo wanted blood, but I didn’t really stop to think about it. Yanno, scared out of my mind, just killed a woman and buried her, was only thinking about not getting caught and all that.

“D was in a tree when I first met him. His parents own this farmhouse outside of a beach city, so it was forest on one side and ocean on the other. Really beautiful place to visit. Anyway, I’m running and avoiding this town, and out of the corner of my eye I see this kid in a tree reading a book. My first instinct was to hide, but I’d already rain into his line of sight at that point so he almost immediately noticed me.

“He called down to me, and probably came down because I didn’t seem intent on talking. I was trying to keep my wound hidden but he _would not_ stop circling me to get a look at my tattoo. When he finally got a look at it he was so excited. I was just weirded out by it all. But he started jabbering on about how cool the tattoo was. 

_“Oh, wow, that’s a cool tattoo… I’ve never seen someone use these markings for body paint, that’s so dangerous… But I always knew it could be innovative, I—“_

_“Who are you?”_

_“Oh, sorry! My name’s Dimitri Ulysses. Call me D, if you want!”_

_“D, huh… H-hey, watch it, don’t just touch people without asking—!”_

_“Oh, sorry! I got carried away, your tattoo is just… Um, this is probably not what you’d expect to hear from someone upon meeting them for the first time, but I’m into occult stuff. I’m not like, part of a cult, or anything, I just think reading about it is really cool. It’s got a ton of practical uses.”_

_“My tattoo’s not a cult thing. Are you like a witch or something?”_

_“Nope. I’m an alchemist. Well, an alchemist in training! I can only do a little bit right now, but that just means I’ve got an aptitude for it! Are you one too?”_

“He ended up taking me back to his parent’s place since I had nowhere to go and he was crazy interested in my ink. His house overlooked the city, although there was no barn or animals nearby. Though, the garden outside was taken care of and blooming with the most beautiful assortment of things you’ve ever seen. There was a truck parked outside, one of those ones that open from the side—his mom used it for a farmer’s market in the city.

“His dad was a preacher at a church in town, so I wasn’t too welcome at first. But his mom became more concerned with me the second she saw my injuries. Although D’s father kept reprimanding D and trying to give him a lecture, his mother stopped him to focus on helping me. Honestly I was so overwhelmed by the attention I just ran off to the bathroom with D to treat myself.

“It took them a bit to warm up to me. D kept me on his floor for a while until about four months in they let me use the guest bedroom. I… Really got lost in domestic life, his mom was so kind and always had something for me to help out with. She had a green thumb but didn’t know how to cook, so she gardened and I taught her what I knew in the kitchen. It just… Reminded me of my mom and cooking with her. 

“Remember how I mentioned way back that D got sick from touching my knives? I showed them to him once cuz he was curious and he touched it before I could stop him. About a day passed where he was fine, but then he suddenly collapsed in anaphylactic shock. His dad rushed him to the hospital—he almost didn’t make it, but D ended up fine in the end. I told them it must have been a mushroom from the forest or something but his dad was always suspicious of me after that. Still is.

_“What do you mean a mushroom? Dimitri knows not to eat things like that.”_

_“I—I’m not sure, okay? I wasn’t with him when he collapsed, and I barely saw him yesterday!”_

_“What about those weapons you carry? Did you attack him and are just covering it up, after everything we’ve done for you?”_

_“No!! I wouldn’t—I’d sooner stab myself than hurt him!”_

“A little while after that, I’d been there for six months maybe? Demons started getting pretty restless around the town. So I took up hunting again. Since I had my own room it was easy to sneak out, but D caught me once. He wanted to come. I wouldn’t let him. So I guess that started him down the path of creating weapons. He really wanted to help me out, which was cute ‘cuz he was like a little puppy, but oh man was his dad upset. Didn’t take kindly to building weapons in the garage.

_“What’cha doin’ there?”_

_“Oh, hey Adrian! You have great timing, does this feel balanced?”_

_I startled as he whipped around and handed me a sword he’d been working on. “It’s really light. Why are you making a… jeez, a dao? Didn’t you just sharpen your mom’s machete? Unless this is some crazy mother’s day gift.”_

_“It’s for you! To help you hunt demons! Hey, if you bring me back any demon parts like claws or bones, I bet I could use alchemy to make it into a weapon!”_

_My brows shot up. I looked over the weapon—surely he knew that normal human weapons couldn’t do anything? But he’d tried so hard… He’d even etched one of his circles onto the blade. Well, he did say he was into occult stuff, so maybe he’d found a way to make it deal some damage._

_“I’ll try it out, sorry if I break it. I’ll bring back something to make up for it.”_

“Another six months passed but the demon activity kept increasing. Eventually I had to stay out longer and longer amounts of time and it made D’s old man suspicious. He finally got fed-up with it—me being a ‘bad influence’ on D and all—and told to leave the house. Shit, I was nineteen? But I wasn’t about to argue, I didn’t want to bother D or his mom with our little feud.

“It was crazy. I was barely even out of town when there was an attack by demons on the city. I didn’t even think, I just dropped everything and sprinted back. The center of town was razed, fires everywhere, people running if they could make it away from demons. There was this huge demon at the head of the hoard that called itself Grendel—I’m talking hulking, two story tall, crocodile snout that kept extending, eating up everything in sight including other demons. Each time it ate it bulked up, but it’s downfall was that every time it spit an attack at me it shrunk down. 

“I killed it. It had been almost a year since my tattoo had feasted on something so powerful. Dimitri somehow had found me in the city—dunno, I never asked why he was there, but his dad was limping next time I saw him so maybe they were at the church and got hurt helping people. Anyway, D watched my tattoo absorb the remains of Grendel… this glowing red little ball… and then spit out a Devil Arm. Well, you saw it, that longsword.

_“Oh. My god. What did I just watch? That was crazy!”_

_“Dimitri?!”_

_“Adrian, what was that!! Start from the beginning! No, no, actually, tell me about the sword first, what_ happened?! _That was insane!”_

_“D, no—how much did you see—wait, you shouldn’t be here, where are your parents, are they—“_

“After the whole ordeal, D’s father apologized to me and thanked me. I didn’t expect that at all from him. But honestly, I couldn’t accept it, not when I couldn’t… Well, you’ll probably hate me for saying it. I didn’t protect the town. I know it was out of my control but I’ll always feel like there was something more I could have done. I was just a weak kid with a couple knives. But if I’d just been stronger… Aahh I hate myself thinking about this, enough. In the end I insisted on leaving and they gave me some supplies and a map to get to the next town over. But…

_As I was leaving town, I heard the familiar putt-putt-putt of D’s mom’s fruit truck. I slowed to a stop and turned to see D driving the old thing. He leaned out of the window to talk to me._

_“Hey. Did you just want to say good bye one more time?”_

_“Nope! I’m going with you.”_

_“I’m sorry?”_

_“Yeah! I managed to talk my parents into it. Besides! I’m the only one who really knows how to do upkeep on your tattoo at this point, right? And I can make you weapons like that one you got from that demon!”_

_“D, I really don’t think that’s a good idea—“_

_“Oh, come onnnn, you’re_ not _gonna say that to me. You know how much I wanna blow this town anyway! Come on. Let me go with you. You need someone to watch your back. Please?”_

_Laughing to myself and too relieved to fight, I went around to the other side of the truck and climbed in. He did a little cheer._

_“Alright, D, lead the way.”_

“And we were on the road for a year. We made it here, mmm, two years ago? But we’ve only really started making bank recently. And that’s it. That’s how we met.”

By the time Clear finished his story, he’d finished both of his drinks and was absently swishing the remaining ice. “Sorry, I guess alcohol makes me pretty talkative, huh.”

Dante shrugged. He’d poured himself a new glass sometime in the middle of the story, and was almost done with it at this point. It had been a while since he’d drank this much. Even though he was no where near tipsy, the alcohol warmed his face and stomach pleasantly.

“I was interested to hear it. You wouldn’t have told me otherwise anyway, would you?”

It was Clear’s turn to shrug. “Idunno. I might’ve. I trust you.”

That was a declaration. Dante made a silent bet to himself, that Clear would try to brush him off if he mentioned it in the morning. 

“Don’t let the alcohol talk for you,” Dante said, to give him some false dignity to fall back on if he did try to brush it off. Clear huffed at him but didn’t fight it. 

“Hey, I’ve got a question for you,” he said, still not looking up from the ice even if he stopped swirling it.

“Shoot.”

“You're Sparda's son, right? How did that happened?

Dante nodded. He figured that Clear would have asked that eventually. Well, if they were sharing origin stories. Dante kicked his feet up on the desk. 

"We~ll, when a human and a demon love each other very much—“

"We all know how babies are made. But how did they meet?" 

"Honestly, I don't know. The old man was killed when I was young, and my mother along with him. But they were happy for our childhood..." 

"Our?" 

That pang again. "Ah, yeah. I had a twin brother." 

Clear curled himself up a little tighter on the couch. “Had? Did he also...? ”

Dante nodded his head and stood instead of answering. He started gathering up the pizza box and his empty glass of whiskey.

“I’ll tell you about it later. You better get some sleep, kid, we’ll have a long day tomorrow.”  

Clear nodded and didn’t press the issue more. When Dante came back to offer him a blanket, he’d already shut his eyes and was breathing evenly. It was the most relaxed Dante had seen him in a week, but he could also really see the tiredness in his shoulders and face. Well, in the morning they’d get back to searching. 

As he was heading up the stairs after turning off the lights, he barely caught Clear whispering ‘thank you’ over the creaking of the wood. 


	14. Mission 14: A Light in the Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHO'S THAT POKEMON???

“When is Lady gonna get back?”

“You’ve asked me that at least a hundred times now, kid, and I’ll keep telling you the same thing: I have no clue.” 

Clear smashed Ravenna into the ground out of pure frustration. Dante whistled, mildly impressed, at how the force of the impact cratered the street. Clear didn’t even bristle at him; he merely squatted down with a huff and started tugging the axe from the ground. They’d been sparring outside of Devil May Cry for the better part of the afternoon after exhausting all their leads the day before. Now they were waiting on Lady to come back with something, _anything_ , that could give them a hint as to where Dimitri had been taken. Dante sighed and squatted down across from Clear.

“Just taking your missions and sparring is wasting time I could be using to find D.”

“Well what else are you gonna do, huh? Unless you’ve got any informants.”

“What about that broker you mentioned, Morrison? Has he found anything?”

“He gives me jobs. Unless whoever kidnapped Dimitri hires him we won’t even be looking.”

Clear huffed and gave up trying to free Ravenna without the use of her wind. Instead, he took a seat and leaned against the winged axe. Dante joined him sitting.

“This is fucked. All we know is demons in suits took him, but no one seems to have even seen ‘em. It’s like they were just watching our shop. God, I wish I could just ask…” Clear trailed off and shook his head.

“You could ask?” Dante inquired with a tilt of his head.

“There was an informant I used to have. She was really good at her job, she’d find us something if she hadn’t skipped town a couple months ago.”

“Damn! What a shame! You don’t know how to contact her?”

“Brokers don’t exactly make themselves easily available, do they?”

“I suppose…”

As they slipped into silence, the sound of an engine getting closer became a welcome distraction. As soon as Lady pulled up to the front of the shop Clear was on his feet to greet her.

“Did you find anything?”

“You owe me big-time, Clear. The entire cost of gas for starters,” Lady answered as she parked her motorcycle. She fished through her pockets before pulling out a scrap of paper.

“I managed to get in contact with a broker from Red Grave City. But you wouldn’t believe the shit she had me do to prove I was worth her time. She said she’d be passing through in a couple of days and gave me this time and place. Make sure you mark your calendar.”

Clear unfolded the paper. Gears were turning in his head, a female broker from Red Grave… He knew Beatrice had disappeared months ago; it had to be a coincidence, there was no way Lady had actually found her… Yet the scribbled name under the time—the middle of the day, way too early for a broker to be out—and place, _Bea_ , was too obviously _her._

“I do owe you one,” Clear answered. He almost wanted to hug Lady, but she was already on her way inside.

“We’ll figure out the details later. I’m gonna take a shower! I hope you paid the heating bills Dante!”

Clear glanced up at the older hunter, who just shrugged.

“Cold showers are good for you.” 

* * *

 

At the designated meeting time, Clear arrived too early. He had Ravenna strapped to his back and Tatzelwurm at his thigh, hand resting on the hilt of one of the blades. He was buzzing with nervous energy. The serene fountain was quiet for being in the middle of a park, but it was a Tuesday when everyone would have been in school or work, so it made some bit of sense.

He was too wound up. Every time someone passed even slightly towards the path his eyes snapped to them. And each time it was just a person out jogging, or walking a dog, or doing something else that didn’t involve them turning down towards the fountain. It wasn’t until he heard Dante’s stomping and Lady’s lighter steps that he relaxed just a little.

“She hasn’t shown up yet.”

“You’re just way too early,” Dante said. He took a seat on the edge of the fountain and leaned forward on his knees.

“Or she’s been here all along. Look.” Lady tilted her chin up. Across from where Dante was sitting, a girl had appeared as if out of thin air. Her long coat hung at her elbows, too pale a pink suede to _not_ be anything designer. She was messing around on her phone and twirling a strand of faded pink hair around her finger. Clear swore that she hadn’t been there even a second ago. But her trade-mark hair color was unmistakable.

“Beatri—”

“I was wondering when you’d notice!” she chuckled. She didn’t turn to face them, but stopped messing with her phone.

“It’s been too long, A~dri~an!”

Clear noted that Lady and Dante glanced to him. He shrugged them off and moved to stand in front of her. Bea stared up at him from behind her sunglasses, white eyes innocent. Although, she was smiling in a way that looked like she was trying to hold back a laugh; it pissed him off.

“Why’d you come back now?”

“Not even a greeting? You used to be so nice, what happened?” the broker joked as she stood up. She was _tiny_ compared to Clear, standing just at his jaw even in heels.

“I’m not joking around Bea. I hear nothing from you for months and suddenly you’re back. _You_ used to be more honest with me.”

“Well it wasn’t like anything in Red Grave would have interested you. Your jobs are here. And now, so am I!” Bea flicked Clear in the chest with a dainty finger as she spoke. He leaned back but didn’t really move, a scowl set on his face. She just giggled at him in response.

“Although, truthfully, I did come back because of what I heard in the shadows. There’s a lot of rumors going about that the former King Mundus isn’t dead and that he’s coming back for a second shot. And his new form had something to do with a friend of your’s that got kidnapped? Am I right?”

“Mundus is rising again? That guy doesn’t know when to quit does he,” Dante sighed with a shake of his head. Lady and Bea both shrugged.

“Gettin’ warmer. Any idea where he was taken?”

“Hmm… I can’t really say exactly, but I have an idea…”

“Hey. Hate to break up the reunion, but we’ve got company,” Lady suddenly interrupted. She slung Kalina Ann off her shoulder, eyes alert. Dante did a leisurely scan of his surroundings and smirked as he drew Rebellion off his back.

“Clear, why don’t’cha ask these guys, since they’re the ones who took D?”

Clear bristled. He had Tatzelwurm out in an instant, arms up and legs bent in a battle stance. He wonder when they’d been surrounded. Men and women in suits had started emerging from the garden around the lake. All of them had sunglasses. Some of them had horns, others had fangs, one even had a tail. And some were armed with what looked to be armor with blades mounted to it. Tassels hung off the shoulders. Clear recognized it as Dimitri’s craftsmanship.

Without hesitation the demons were charging. The hunters cut through most of them that weren’t armed easily. Of course, the armed ones put up more of a fight. While Dante dealt with two of his own and Lady kept a group of three back, two remaining demons advanced on Clear and Bea.

One flicked his wrist, a blade extending from behind his hand. He sliced at Bea but she twirled to hide behind Clear. The demon went for another stab and Clear reacted instantly, using one blade to knock his arm aside and the other to slice at his ribs. He twisted out of range and backed up as the other dove in.

It was a relentless game of tag. Any lucky hits he got on the two demons slowed them down after a while, but without any substantial damage Clear was nothing more than a human. He glanced to see how the others were doing. In the split second he took his eyes away, the two demons charged in unison.

One went for a stab to his knee, the other went for his chest. However, the impacts never came; instead, a brilliant burst of light conjured a shield in front of him. He had to shield his eyes from the brightness of it. Bea giggled in his ear, her hand over his shoulder and held out to manipulate the light in front of him.

“Come on, look sharp! Here, let me help you out,” she whispered. She trailed one hand up his arm—when had she even cut her hand on his knife?—and let he blood seep into his tattoo. Instantly he felt rejuvenated in the light of the sun; more powerful, like he could move faster, and hit stronger, maybe even at the speed of light if his human body could withstand it. It was faint, but light particles had begun swirling around his arms where his skin wasn’t covered by sleeves or bracelets.

“It’s a rush, isn’t it? Just be careful before you burn yourself out.”

And then she jumped away from him. The force of her shoved Clear forward into the two demons and he had no time to guard himself—but maybe he did, they seemed to be moving in slow-motion around him. He brought one of his blades up. In a brilliant flash of light he hadn't just severed the demon's hand at the wrist, but effectively shot a beam out that sliced him in half. The other seemed to hesitate before moving in but Clear met her halfway. A few quick stabs later, she was disintegrating on the floor.

How had he even been able to move that fast? He felt as though he'd been weaving in and out of the light surrounding him less than moving at the same speed, but it was still way faster than he'd even been able to move before. Bea's blood made the speed boost Dante's gave him seem like a speed limit. 

"Adrian! When did you grow wings!" 

He turned to where she called from. She was floating slightly above the ground, lounging on thin particles of light floating in the shape of a chair. She had her phone out, a red light below the camera blinking to show she'd been recording him. Then, he gave a little glance over his shoulder. It wasn't his usual wing, but instead a similar copy made from light as well, fading up into the bright sky. Add that to the list of questions he had—wait a fucking second—

“Bea, you—you’re a demon?!”

“You _just_ figured that out?” Dante asked from the opposite side of the fountain, genuine surprise in his voice. He was standing on the back of one of the demons, sword through her midsection.

"Wh—I—she never gave me her blood, I thought she was human!" 

"Kid, have you even  _looked_ at her eyes? What kind of human has pure white eyes like that!" 

“Hey, revelations later. I kept this one alive!” Lady yelled to them. She had one demon on the ground in a tight arm bar.

“I thought I was airheaded…” Bea mumbled to herself. Still, she skipped over to where Lady was, Clear slowly following a few seconds later. She kneeled down in front of the struggling demon.

“See, they followed me here after I got a key piece of info. When Miss Lady here called me, I knew I could trust you to help me out in exchange. You can kill this one if you want, it's not like he'll tell me something I don't know." 

"And what do you know, huh?" Clear asked her, looking wholly annoyed. 

"Hmm, let's see... there's so much to tell you!" 

"Then let's cut to the chase, yeah?" Dante said. 

"Take a girl out to dinner first, Dante Sparda!" Bea teased in response. At his raised eyebrow, Bea looked down to the demon instead. 

"The man who kidnapped your friend is working for Mundus. It's no secret he wants to take over the world, but, oh, how the mighty have fallen! He wooed the son of a CEO into funding him! Jason Malacoda is his name. And one of Mundus' higher ups, Minos, is working with him too. That's why they have so many mindless demons at their control." 

"CEO... of what company, do you know?" Clear asked. His wing had all but disappeared now.

"Of course! And I'm feeling generous because I haven't seen my dearest Adrian in so long, so I'll tell you! It's called Argo."

“Argo? Ah, Argo Nautical, right? It’s a company that builds all kinds of ships. Maybe the fact that we can’t find your friend in any nearby town is because he’s on the water,” Lady said. Even though she was still holding the demon in an arm bar, she seemed pretty relaxed. It wasn't struggling either. 

“But there’s no city on the beach for miles. The closest one is probably D’s hometown, and even that’s at least a good two, three day road trip from here.” Clear placed a hand over his mouth. Damn it, they could have moved that fast too...

“… Strand!” Bea announced suddenly. She started searching for something on her phone, then showed it to the three hunters. The strange keychain flipped in front of the screen for a second, a flash of light reflecting through it into Clear's eye making him blink for a second. 

“A few years ago, there was a massive demon attack that left the town decrepit. Whoever was left packed up and moved so the place is a ghost town now. But I’ve heard some whispers that maybe a month ago an Argo ship parked at the docks, and since then the town’s been infested with demons.”

“How far is it from here?” Dante asked as he leaned into her phone.

“About a four, five hour drive? It’s pretty close! You guys could get there by the time it's dark!" Bea said.

“How’d you get information about a place no where _near_ Red Grave…” Clear muttered.

“Gossip travels fast amongst demons, you know. Especially where Mundus or the other kings and princes are concerned," Bea said. She then stood up, and brushed off her clothes to start walking back towards the path away from the fountain. Lady stood too, but not before pulling a gun from her belt and finishing off the demon under her. It fell limp and began to disintegrate into ash as well. 

Clear felt awkward letting her leave in silence. He didn't have much to say, but in some ways he did consider her a friend, one that he hadn't seen in months. He opened his mouth to speak. She cut him off. 

“Dante?”

“That’s me.” Dante said, surprise in his voice. 

“I’ve heard a lot about you. And your big brother.”

“Woah, shouldn’t we go on that date first before you ask about my family?”

“He’s surviving down there. In Hell.”

Dante visibly tensed. Clear looked up to him, noting how tight his jaw was, and how wide his clear eyes blew. There were so many emotions swirling in them Clear couldn't read. 

"That's—impossible. I know what I did."

“Maybe so! But you 'sealed' Mundus, and guess who's back!” Bea threw a hand up dismissively. "Dante. What you did to Nelo Angelo… Begrudgingly I think he’d thank you for it."

Clear could tell he was trying hard not to spit through grit teeth. “That’s nice to hear. He never was one for thank you’s." 

"And Adrian knows I'm not a liar. I respected your father. My mother worked for him. I would never lie to Sparda's blood." 

"She—she wouldn't. I can vouch for her," Clear spoke up. He reached out to take Dante's wrist—god, he was shaking and his knuckles were white, Clear's tattoo thrummed at the mere contact of such pent up angry energy—to try to soothe him in some way. Lady placed a hand on Dante's shoulder as well. Her touch seemed to calm him more than Clear's did.

"I trust her, Dante. I don't know what happened to your brother, but I do know that Bea wouldn't mock him or tell you something untrue."

Dante let out a tight breath. It was the most riled up Clear had ever seen him, and it made him even more curious about what had happened. But now wasn't the time to ask. His grip tightened, just a bit, and Dante looked at him. His brow was furrowed and his lips were set in a tight scowl. 

"Hey—" 

"You're right. Now's not the time for this either. We have a vacation to prepare for, huh?" He pulled his wrist out of Clear's hold, much more gently than Clear anticipated. Lady gave his shoulder a pat and backed off too, adjusting her gun on her back. 

"How much do we owe you, Bea?" she asked. 

"For a cutie like you and a sweetheart like Adrian? I'll call this one on the house!" Bea tossed a wink over her shoulder. She held up her phone in front of her, the gem keychain in front of the camera, and then took a picture. With the light from the flash through the gem, a portal just large enough for her opened. What was on the other side, Clear couldn't make it out, it was too bright. 

"Next time you'll pay though! But it can be that date~" 

Bea winked again, hopped into the portal, and then was gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S BEA!! *obnoxious flirting in the BG*
> 
> My girl has appeared. And yes, I know Trish and Bea are both based of Beatrice, but they almost perform the same job of guiding their respective male counterpart through something so thematically it still fits. 
> 
> Also if Bea met Trish she would absolutely want mommy to raw her.   
> If you fuck someone with the same name is that still self-cest? Nah, it's just awkward LOL
> 
> I need to edit this but I just want to keep writing. Studying for tests? Entering stats for OW?? HOMEWORK??? Nothing is important to me rn I'm tired LOL


	15. Mission 15: A Curse and A Coward

“I thought you said you sealed Mundus in the vault on Mallet Island!”

“Well, yeah, I did! Trish, you were there—“

“Clearly you didn’t really.”

“Look, I’m made for breaking down doors, not building them! It’s not like I have the Yamato anyway.”

“I guess the Devil Sword Sparda wouldn’t have been able to do it either then, huh…”

Trish, Dante, and Lady had been arguing about the situation since they’d gotten back from meeting Bea. Clear couldn’t care less. He was just happy to have a solid lead to Dimitri’s location. Strand… he’d never heard of the place, but if what Bea said about the demon attack was true then of course he wouldn’t remember. He would have been fleeing Red Grave and on the road with his teacher at the time.

“Hey, kid. Got any ideas on the best route to get there?” Dante suddenly threw at him, snapping Clear from his thoughts. He looked up from the map.

“We’ll have to go through that mountain again, the one Ravenna tore up—“

“Then you mean ‘go around it,’ since all the roads are being reconstructed,” Dante interjected.

“Oh. Right,” Clear grumbled. He went back to looking at the map.

Lady and Trish moved to look over it with him. They both left for days at a time, they’d probably be better at finding a route since they’d know the roads better. As he was about to ask, Lady plucked a pen up from the table and started outlining a path.

“It’s a lot longer, but it’ll get you there. If you want to make any good time you leave early in the morning. It’d be a good idea to rest outside of town when you get there too, just so you’re not fatigued,” she said as she finished the last line.

“Right. We should probably bring a meal or something then, huh.”

“There’s plenty of leftover pizza in the fridge.”

“Oh. Goody. The kind without olives.”

Lady and Trish raised their eyebrows, while Clear shot Dante a look. The man was leaning back in his chair with his feet up, an equally unimpressed look on his face. The two held eye contact for a long while until Dante huffed and looked away. Lady caught Clear’s smirk as he turned back to the map; the moment was so _normal_ compared to the last few hectic days.

But of course, the peace didn’t last. As Clear was standing to take a picture with his phone, an explosion from outside shook the building. Lady barely had a chance to react to one of the wheels of a motorcycle flying through the window—luckily, Trish was lightning fast to grab her and pull her out of the way. The wheel bounced towards the stairs, embedding itself into the second level of them after crushing the railing.

“That was my bike!” Lady yelled. Dante was up quickly too, reaching for his sword from the wall behind him.

“You know how much this is gonna cost to fix? Looks like another two months of cold showers.”

“No time to joke, those are the guys that took D! Seems like Bea pointed us in the right direction.”

Clear grabbed Ravenna as he rushed to the door. Without even hesitating he blew a gust of wind out of it, knocking the doors wide open and clearing a path through the fire outside of the office. There was that assortment of demons in suits again, some looking more hellish than others, and most of them outfitted with either armor, a sword and shield, or a gun. One even had a rocket launcher. All of the weapons were of Dimitri’s making, and it made Clear’s blood boil that whoever took him was forcing him to use his talents like this.

The demons opened fire. Clear spun Ravenna in his hands generating a typhoon around him that shot the bullets off against the walls instead of reaching him or the office. When a rocket came flying at him, he halted spinning to flick Ravenna up, using the axe to cleave it in half. The diffused halves flew off to either side of him to just barely impact the walls of the office. He ignored Dante’s indignant yelling in lieu of crushing the demons in front of him.

Rushing at the thickest group of them, he spun Ravenna around and threw her at the group. Exerting his power over the weapon, he commanded it to open after it left his hands. The bladed wings opened up and the gem atop the staff began to glow radiantly: the demons around it that got caught in the first flash of light immediately turned to the axe, gazes transfixed and unable to look away. Clear clicked his tongue and turned to the rest of the hoard while drawing Tatzelwurm.

He had some reserved blood from sparring with Dante earlier. Smearing it across his arm and letting his tattoo absorb it, he was already picking out the best path to clear the most demons. Dante, Trish, and Lady finally came to join him outside, Trish shooting a blast of lightning at a group right by the door to paralyze the ones that didn’t die to her. Dante dove in to finish them off, while Lady started picking at the stray snipers on the roofs with a rifle picked up from Trish’s pray.

Clear went for a small group that had hidden behind one of their trucks. He vaulted over the top of the van and landed in front of them while they were reloading. It barely even took him a second to slaughter them, his tattoo gleefully absorbing the blood offered to it. Fuck it, he could go a little wild, especially when these fucking goons were just throwing themselves at his feet.

He rounded the car again and dashed towards Ravenna and the group of demons there. His body felt lighter, faster—he was dully aware of his wing unfurling and a surge of power rushing through his legs. Then, a step later, and he was already back by the entrance of Devil May Cry. His mind caught up to him and he nearly toppled with the sudden rush. The wing retreated into his back. He looked over his shoulder. A good chunk of the group surrounding Ravenna was starting to disintegrate, poison from Tatzelwurm eating them alive.

 _‘Cursed…’_ Parasite whispered in the back of his mind. _‘It’s your Trigger… your Curse Trigger.’_

“Curse… Trigger?” Clear mumbled despite himself. His tattoo buzzed against his skin, like it was cackling at him.

 _‘Be wary to pull it too much~’_

“Watch out!”

Clear jolted at Dante’s voice. Still, he turned too slowly. There was a blade in his face and no way to block it—

Trish zipped in front of him. She slammed her arm against the flat of the blade to knock it away, and grabbed the demon wielding it by the gut. Electricity sparked along her arm just before the clap of thunder exploded in his ears. Clear had to shield his eyes from the blinding flash of her lightning absolutely frying the demon in front of him.

“We just figured out how to get to Strand, no dying now,” she tutted, and gently rapped his forehead with her knuckles. Then, her expression became stony, and she said, “but you have to tell us what a Curse Trigger is after we’re done here.”

“I—I wish I could…”

Thanks to Ravenna’s baiting light, the rest of the distracted demons were picked off pretty quickly by Lady and Dante. Clear sat out the rest of the fight, trying futilely to communicate with Parasite while sweeping up shards of glass and splinters of wood from inside the office. It would take more energy than he at at the moment to get the wheel out of the stairs, so that could be dealt with later.

“Honey, I’m home,” Dante called when he entered the shop again. He had Ravenna over one shoulder and Rebellion over the other. Clear didn’t answer him.

“You seem pretty shaken, kid. What happened?”

“Wish I could tell you…” Clear breathed at the question. He heard Dante placing the weapons down near his desk. Clear sliced his finger on glass. The cut healed right over.

“What did you say about a ‘Curse Trigger?’” Trish asked upon entering the building.

“Idunno. Parasite said something about it when it happened—“

“Parasite?” Dante asked.

“My tattoo.”

“You named your tattoo?” Lady said, shocked. Clear shrugged.

“It’s a Devil Arm, it told me itself. Though I think… when you talked about a Devil Trigger before, I think that’s what it is. Just like you said. A Devil Arm that gives me a Devil Trigger.”

“But to call it a Curse Trigger…” Trish placed a hand over her mouth, thinking.

“Parasite told me not to pull it too much…”

“Probably a good idea. Until we know what it is, you should restrain using it,” Dante told him.

“That was the plan,” Clear muttered. He went back to picking up glass, watching every wound he got heal over instantly. Each new scar on his fingers looked like an eerie grin up at him, reminding him of Parasite’s words.

* * *

 

Bea stepped out of her portal onto the remains of one of the taller buildings. Strand hadn’t been particularly decimated towards the outskirts of the city, but a lot of windows and walls had been shattered and creviced. She was surprised this one was still standing.

The sun was quite high in the sky. Over the horizon, if she squinted, she could make out the shape of a ship. It was large, but far out. Before she even attempted to get to it she’d have to at least check the docks to see how the crew was getting to and from.

Creating platforms under her feet as she walked was easy. As long as she didn’t cast a shadow forward there was nothing to weaken her or see her fall. She stayed pretty high above the line of buildings, until she reached the beach and had to drop onto a roof to stay in hiding.

Farther down the coast she could see where an old dock was being used. There weren’t many boats, three or four at most, and only a few guards around it. All of them were holding guns—although, the weapons were strange. She’d never seen a demonic gun before; they must have been weapons made or modded by Malacoda’s captive. Mundus was a demon lord, she still didn’t fully understand why he needed a human contractor with money. Most of the demons had just been wearing human skins, so maybe to hire the manpower. And for the weapons, she guessed, but why would they be paying Adrian’s friend? Materials? She’d have to do some more asking around in Hell to find out.

She snapped a couple pictures. It was easy enough to find Adrian phone number, he hadn’t changed it since she’d left. He didn’t even notice when she’d both swiped _and_ returned his phone while he was fighting to check. She’d just clicked the send button when her phone was suddenly plucked out of her hand by a clawed glove.

“What’s with the youth these days, always on their phones…”

Despite herself, Bea yelped. She turned to face the man, recognizing him instantly by the scaly suit and the mark on his forehead.

“Minos—how did you—give it back!”

“What were you sending? Oh, Adrian is his name? I’m sure our captive would hate to hear that I know that,” Minos taunted. He merely stepped back when Bea made a dive for her phone, using his height against her to keep it out of her range. She dove for it again, this time making a staircase out of light under her to jump at his arm. Minos merely dipped it behind his back, taking advantage of her vulnerability in the air to reach out with his other hand. He gripped Bea’s collar so he could toss her away from himself.

“So desperate, princess. I won’t unsend them. Quite the contrary. I’d actually prefer if he came here.”

“What do you want with him? He’s a human, no matter how demon that tattoo makes him you can’t control him!” Bea yelled. She righted herself to scramble back but Minos advanced on her faster than she could get to her feet.

“I know that. But you forget how easily humans can be swayed by emotions. What if he found out someone he loved died? What if he found out Sparda’s brat killed them?” His hand was in her hair, forcing her to look up at him. Bea scrambled to grip his wrist, scratching at him, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Dante would never—“

“Of course not. And Adrian would never kill Dante, right? So you’re going to use your powers. I know you can make illusions. You’re going to come with me, and use your illusions to trick Adrian into slaughtering Dante Sparda for us.”

His words shoved every rational thought from her head. Even if she wanted to, there was no way she could deny his wishes. He asked her to do something… Minos gave her a task… it was her duty to complete it… or else… or else…

Her hands fell to her sides. Minos released her hair once he was sure he could see a ring of purple in her eyes, and handed her phone back to her, which she diligently took. He offered her a hand, and she took it to stand.

“There’s a good girl. Now, remember to send a location and a time. We don’t want our guests to be late to their final dance.”

“Anything for you, Minos.”


	16. Mission 16: Blood in the Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of last chapter we're officially 3/4th finished! Chap 21 will be an epilogue so I'm not really counting it but!! We're really close to done! I have a lot I want to do so it'll be kind of hard to not let it get crowded haha;; I'll do my best ^^! 
> 
> Also the boss fights are all kind of irrelevant but I really just wanted to show off a ton of weapons designs. Marabbecca's is my fav, followed by Grendel—honestly if they were in a DMC game I'd spend a lot of time getting good at them lol
> 
> Edit: There was a small plothole I just did a fix on. I wrote the fight scene waaayyy before I wrote the chapter, and lowkey forgot what was in it while I was writing the rest. Sorry that took too long to get to!

They left early the next morning. The drive to Strand was only supposed to be six or seven hours, so they opted to take shifts driving to not tire themselves out. Once Clear had loaded their weapons in the back of Dimitri’s van, he climbed into the driver’s seat and took them out of town.

Dante read magazines most of the time. They made some small-talk but Clear was too focused on the route and getting to Strand. After about three hours the radio faded out to nothing. Another half-hour after that Dante forced him to stop so he could get out and stretch, and then take his spot.

Clear didn’t mean to fall asleep. But by the time Dante was waking him up, they were parked on the outskirts of a desecrated city, afternoon sun high in the sky. The sunlight reflecting off the clear water and bright white beach blinded him, but at least it did well to wake him up. A minute later, they had their weapons—Tatzelwurm and Grendel at Clear’s hip, with his carbine strapped to his back, while Dante had stored Ravenna, Airistotle, _and_ Biscione _somewhere_ on his person, Rebellion in her usual place on his back—and were ready to go.

The town was nearly dead silent. As they got closer to the sore, a few demons popped up but it was nothing that a couple gunshots couldn’t handle. Dante lead the advancement while Clear followed him closely; it was usually Dante’s keen senses that allowed him to pick off demons with Ebony and Ivory before they could come close, but sometimes he let a straggler or two go.

“I gotta let you catch up in score somehow,” Dante had said. Clear merely huffed.

By the time they’d made it to the beach, Clear was nervously checking his phone. He’d received directions from Bea the day before but he had yet to see her. While he did know her for being flighty, she usually gave him more information than just a place and a time; some teasing and an emoji of some kind usually came with it.

“You said Bea’d meet us here?” Dante asked. They were crouched by the storm wall, overlooking the docks.

“I thought she would…” Clear muttered. The tension must have been clear in his tone with the way Dante didn’t tease him.

“Dunno much about her but she seems like the type to wait until we’ve done all the fighting. She’ll probably show up soon.”

“Yeah… hey, where is everyone? You’d think for a dock that _could_ hold a demon king’s ship, there’d be more security?”

“Kid, I don’t even see a _ship_ here. There’s all these little boats around but no big boys. Are you sure Bea was right?”

“I trust her. If she says it’s here, it’s here.”

Still, even as he said it, the fact that there was _no one_ in the city and _no one_ on the docks made him nervous. Had it been faulty information? Had Bea lead him astray on purpose? What if she’d turned on him, and this was a trap—

“Hey. Look out there.” Dante tapped his shoulder to grab his attention. Clear’s eyes snapped to the horizon where Dante was pointing, at a barge way out in the distance. It was hard to see, but it looked like there was a ship coming in.

“You think that’s it?” Dante asked.

“Wish I had a way to see it better. Let’s see who gets off the boat, if it’s more suits then we’ll take it back,” Clear said. Dante gave a nod and the two of them moved out further, jumping onto one of the abandoned boats closer to the end of the dock.

It wasn’t anymore than twenty minutes before the ship came in. Sure enough, the demons in suits exited it. Some of them looked like ones Clear had already killed; so they at least weren’t killing humans to take their skins as disguises… but he’d run through so many he couldn’t be entirely sure.

The two hunters waited for them to take their exit to the beach. Only two had been left behind to guard the ship. Easy pickings. Dante looked like he was ready to lunge at them with a Stinger, so Clear readied his carbine. He lined up his sight right between the sunglasses, finger itching to pull the trigger—

Their boat rocked. Suddenly, ice exploded all around them, growing up the dock and freezing the bodies of the two demons in place. Many of the boats were lifted out of the water if they weren’t speared straight through. Their getaway seemed to be okay, but their hiding spot certainly wasn’t. Clear dove for another boat nearby, catching the rail of it and hauling himself up. When he scanned for Dante he found the other man being raised into the air by an icy coil. Then, without any warning, he was flung out into the ocean.

“Dante—!!” Clear wasn’t even given a second to react. Another icy whip grabbed his leg and gave him much the same treatment. He was dragged into the water foot-first, breaking the surface with a shot from his gun, but it hurt like hell. 

The cold of the water almost shocked the breath out of him. He couldn’t see which way was up or which was down, all he knew was that he didn’t take in enough air before he’d been thrown under.

After a second of not moving, his body started to sink a little, starting with his legs. He waited until they’d mostly stopped, then started swimming for the surface. His lungs were screaming for air but he could see light behind his eyelids, so he was going in the right direction. The light was getting brighter—a hand brushed just above the surface and he knew he’d be able to breath in a sweet breath of air—

Something _human_ gripped his leg. But then, with _inhuman_ strength, it held fast and jerked him down away from the surface of the water. The light faded faster than he expected. His ears popped and he realized he must be farther than ten feet down. Whatever had grabbed him was both strong and fast, and nothing he could actually fight without any air. His chest hurt at the lack of it. Even though he was struggling, he felt every kick get weaker; maybe the light fading away wasn’t even because he was being dragged from the surface but because he was blacking out. The last thing he could consciously focus on was his leg being released and a tight rope wrapping around one of his raised arms.

* * *

 

Dante jerked Biscione, glad that it could extend it’s range if he really pushed it to. The salt stung his eyes but his dark vision was helping him see at least blurry shapes and shadows better. One crack from the whip had made the demon—a mermaid or a siren by the looks of it—release Clear. He managed to guide the weapon to wrap around Clear’s arm and jerked, pulling him up towards the surface.

As soon as he was close enough, Dante pulled him up with an arm around his chest. The shore wasn’t too far out, Airistotle could probably drag them back in fast enough for him to perform CPR. His red coat was heavy though, making him almost consider shedding it. Breaking him from his thoughts, Clear coughed; Dante held tight so he didn’t accidentally slip and swallow more water. The kid’s breathing was fast, his heartbeat under Dante’s palm was faster, but that just proved he was alive.

“Sick prank, Dante,” Clear said. Dante couldn’t help but chuckle, but was quickly serious again.

“Ever met a mermaid? Cuz this one’s set on making sushi out of us.”

“Oh, isn’t that great. I can’t even see down there—“

Hands grabbed at their legs again. While Clear jerked his knees up towards Dante’s arm, the older hunter kicked harder in the water to make the mermaid back off. When it didn’t, Clear wriggled out of Dante’s hold to shrug Biscione off his arm; then, he ducked under the water with a less-than-graceful but still effective spin. The _boom boom_ of fireworks below the surface was followed by an absolutely inhuman shriek that was only dampened by the sound of the waves overhead. Clear surfaced with a gasp a second later, swimming back to Dante.

“Let’s get back to shore, we can’t fight here.”

“Good idea. Hold on tight, kid,” Dante said, offering his shoulders for Clear to grab.

Clear kept a tight grip on him. Dante drew Airistotle, aiming for the shore, but as he was about to release it the water in front of them was cut and a wall of ice rose up. It was thin enough that Dante could see through it, but it was still an obstacle that made him click his tongue. Clear cursed too, and broke his hold off Dante’s back.

“Can you see down there?”

“Barely, but definitely better than you.”

Clear wrinkled his nose and ‘tsk’ed. The moment of peace was shattered by another wall rising between them. Dante shoved himself away as best he could, but Clear, who had yelped at the sudden burst of cold, grabbed the top of the wall and held tight as it rose up. Dante had no idea what the kid was planning from up there, but that became the least of his concerns when he felt both of his legs get lassoed and he was pulled beneath the surface again.

Breathing was definitely going to be an issue, but at least he had sight. His back gently touched sand—his ears had popped and his chest was tight, but the fact that he could still see the surface of the water made him estimate he was maybe 15 feet down—and he quickly sat up to release his legs. Seaweed surrounded his ankles. Easy enough to cut through. He kicked off the ground and started heading back to more manageable water.

When his body felt less compressed about his full height later, he was able to look around. It was hard to hear underwater, but he could definitely hear a faint swishing noise from all sides. He was being circled. Only one demon, he could tell, but a strong one—Biscione wriggled at his hip. The whip reaching out towards something behind him was the only thing he had as warning before a spear of ice shot from that direction. Dante managed to swirl out of the way, only to be charged by the mermaid from the opposite direction. She spun him around with the force of her impact, then dug into his shoulders with long, hard talons. Her hair was a mess of seaweed and plastic. While her emaciated body seemed to be made of organic, rotting flesh and scales, her face and arms were definitely made of stone. It reminded Dante of Biscione’s original body, all the eels and water extending from a headless statue.

“I’LL KILL YOU!!!” she shrieked in his face with startling clarity for her mouth not moving. Claws dug into his shoulders. Her maw opened past the limits of her cheeks and even straight down the middle of her forehead, like some kind of strange eel, revealing rows of serrated teeth all the way down into her throat. She bit at Dante’s face and neck, trying again and again when he kept dodging. He reached up and gripped her neck to shove her back, then managed to lift his foot up enough to reach her stomach. He kicked as hard as he could, her claws digging harder into his shoulders to hold on. Her eel-like tail came up to wrap around his leg. She released his shoulders and easily flung him off to the side.

The strength she had in that throw alone was enough to make him cut water easily. He smashed into one of the ice walls and heard it cracking behind him. Shaking his head, he swam up to the surface to take another breath. The mermaid followed him with an ear-piercing shriek.

He managed to get a full breath in before he was dragged back down. Distantly he knew Clear called to him, but otherwise he wasn’t sure what he was hearing. The mermaid clawed at his hip with one hand, struggling to rip Biscione off his belt. Ah, that was what she was after. He still couldn't figure out what she wanted the whip for, or why it was reacting to her, but maybe they could turn the tides in their favor. No pun intended. 

He gripped her wrist with one hand and yanked her off of him, then, using her as a kick stand, shot up towards the surface of the water. When he was able to take a breath and re-orient himself, he tore Biscione from his belt and tossed the weapon to Clear. The kid barely caught it in his shock, practically dropping his gun in his scramble to catch the whip. He must have been trying to shoot at her—Dimitri had done some mods to that gun, so the bullets would have had some significantly farther travel time underwater. 

"She wants that! We might be able to—" 

Hands tangled around his legs and dragged him back under. He was depending on his ears popping to tell him how deep he’d went, but he didn’t even hit that point before Biscione broke the water’s surface and exploded behind the mermaid’s back. She jerked and howled at the impact of the explosion, releasing Dante instantly and turning to zoom back towards the surface. Blood flowed from her back as she moved, staining the water red where she swam. As Dante followed her, he heard her warble out, “sister!!”

He watched her break the surface with a mighty flex of her tail. He followed with a gasp, quickly blinking water from his eyes so he could see what happened. She’d fully breeched, diving straight for Clear. He tried to whip at her but missed the mark. The mermaid grabbed him by the throat and knocked him off the wall into the water below.

Dante ducked below the surface, his eyes adjusting as quickly as they could manage. The mermaid was hovering a few feet below the surface, Clear in one hand with a growing collar of ice around his throat, Biscione held in the other. The mermaid didn’t seem to be focused on Clear at all, in fact, she simply released him and allowed him to float back to the surface with assistance of the ice. Her voice was warbly, but Dante could distinctly hear her cooing to the whip.

“Oh, my sister, my sister, what has become of you? Don’t worry, you are with Borda now, I will take care of you…”

Her stony eyes fixated on him. He braced for another impact, but Rebellion was _incredibly_ slow underwater.

“Starting with you! For doing this to my sister, how dare you!!”

She threw her hand forward. A spear of ice solidified from her palm, then flew towards him. It cut the water with speeds that shouldn’t have been possible, smashing through the thin wall of ice where he’d impacted it earlier. He blocked one spear. The second one missed, but the third one hit him just above his hip. It splintered immediately, cutting through flesh and other organs in his stomach, and freezing down to his knee on the same side. The ice became water again a second later and he was already healing, but he could barely move his leg. God damn it, the longer the fight went on the more of a pain in the ass it became.

The mermaid charged at him again, but stopped abruptly when the surface of the water broke. They weren’t that deep so it was easy enough for Clear to dive to their level. Dante watched him clash with the mermaid with his knives, slicing at her hand and arm when she reached for him. She seemed to be keeping the whip out of his reach, but between both her and Dante’s blood in the water she was clearly outmatched.

She was screaming and gnashing at him. She kept making spiked balls of ice from her palms that Clear kept narrowly avoiding, his only saving grace being Tatzelwurm’s poison setting in and making it evidently harder for the mermaid to move.

Dante gave his leg a little shake. It was healed enough. He’d sank a fair bit down until his feet touched the bottom of 15 feet again. He pushed off the ground and dove at the mermaid, piercing through her back with Rebellion when he got to her. He gripped Biscione in one hand and jerked Rebellion out with the other, slicing through her side as she gave a final watery screech.

Clear seemed to be doing much better off in the water. He kept running his arm through the blood that floated to the surface from the mermaid’s body, although he kept Tatzelwrum in his hands. Dante stared down at her body dissipating into sand, her hair becoming foam and floating up; Biscione seemed more slack in his hand, as though it was sad to see its sister die too.

From the depths rose a single bright orb. It was a light green in color, almost white, a little larger than the size of a pearl. Easy to miss if it wasn’t shining so brightly. Biscione came alive again, it’s tip reaching out for the orb. With the last of his breath, Dante gave a little chuckle, then grabbed the pearl and swam for the surface.

Clear followed close behind. They broke through the water together, but Dante noticed he was the only one who took a breath. He looked at the weapon that formed in his hand, a green and white bow that seemed to be two mermaid tails connected by marble. It glimmered in the sunlight, almost too bright for him to look at. And though he wanted to show it off and test it’s skills immediately, he wanted to go back to shore first. The weapon folded in half, responding to his thoughts, and twirled together so the fins could reform and flip slightly upward. Dante whistled appreciatively at the crossbow now in his hands, he’d definitely have to test the weapon out when they got to solid ground. He aimed towards the shore and allowed it to gather power from the air and sea around them until it formed an arrow of ice. Then he released the arrow; as it skimmed the top of the water it made a solid-looking platform of frozen sea water.

“Clear!” He called to get his attention. Clear turned to him, and now that Dante could get a good look at him, he could see his eyes were milky white.  Clear’s tattoo was shifting around his jaw and neck, returning from what looked to be gill-like markings to its usual lines.

“It’s so bright up here, I can barely see. Where are you?”

“Over here,” Dante called. As Clear started swimming to him, Dante took the opportunity to give his vocal chords a stretch and sing. It was an older, rarer song, and he wasn’t that well versed in the art of singing, but with an album name like Rock Mermaid, it felt appropriate to belt Future in my Hands. Clear reached for him to take his outstretched hand and let himself get pulled to the icy platform. It was surprisingly stable under their feet as they started back to shore with Dante leading Clear.

“What happened to your eyes? Did she do something to you?” Dante asked. Clear shook his head.

“My sight is coming back, its just her blood. I could see and breathe underwater as soon as my tattoo absorbed it.”

“How helpful,” Dante said. Sure enough, Clear’s eyes were starting to return to their usual dark color, and he could tell his iris from his sclera a little better.

“What did the demon give you?” Clear asked, glancing to the crossbow. _Marabbecca,_ the weapon supplied. It felt light in Dante’s hand, and both it and Biscione were pulsing subtly. The sisters must have been happy to be reunited. He’d store them near each other when he returned to Devil May Cry.

“Marabbecca. Biscione’s sister.”

“Sister? That’s cute,” Clear said. He looked at the two weapons and mumbled, “Suddenly makes sense why she wanted to kill us so badly. For taking her family from her. It’s… Relatable.”

“Thinkin’ about D again?”

Clear scoffed. “When have I stopped? If you hadn’t pulled me out of the water, you know how pissed off I would have been if I’d let myself _die?_ I was so close too, shit…”

“At this point, I’ve paid for Airistotle with the sheer amount of times I’ve saved your ass!” Dante laughed at him, giving Clear's ass a hard enough slap that he jumped and stumbled forward. The other hunter grumbled a few profanities at him, but otherwise didn’t protest. They made it back to the shore fairly quickly, finding most of the ice at the docks already melting now with Marabbecca’s death.

“He’s the only family I have, okay? I don’t want to lose him.”

“I know the feeling. I wouldn’t be along for the ride if I didn’t intend on helping you out—besides, if Mundus really is alive, you can help me help you by taking him down. I’ve got your back if you’ve got mine!”

“Even if _I_ kill a demon king I’ll still owe you a life debt at this point,” Clear sighed. The two frozen demons had yet to thaw completely, so with a couple hits from Biscione they were able to easily free the ship and steal it. Clear would have been more help freeing the boat if he hadn't lost his carbine in the previous scuffle, but what could he do. Dante took the wheel while Clear stayed just outside the wheelhouse. The wind dried him off but still made him shiver.

“Hey, change of pace, for once someone’ll owe me. We’ll sign a contract after we rescue Dimitri.”

“Fuck off.” But Clear's tone was thankful anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Yanno, I realize the tags say 'gay undertones,' and mama didn't raise no fkn coward, so I changed it so that Clear got his ass slapped. It's my fic, Dante's a jock, I can do what I want. 
> 
> Also the song I mentioned is from the DMC anime, ep 6 Rock Queen! The song is FUTURE IN MY HANDS, which is pretty much the title track of the whole episode LOL But the album it’s off of in the show is called Mermaid Rock, so it felt fitting ^^
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chap! Updates have really slowed down but I'm determined to finish this one since my break is coming up!!


	17. Mission 17: Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M DONE WITH FINALS BOYZ. My first semester at my new school is over!! And I did surprisingly well, all As and one B!!! I'm a very happy boi. 
> 
> Anyway I only have a two week break, and though I'm gonna be using most of my time to work, I'll split my free time between drawing, writing, and cleaning as evenly as I can. Also cooking. I'm home and want to cook a LOT for my mom, ramen's probably gonna be first on the list. As to writing, I have two Piers/Raihan things I want to publish, so hopefully those will go up soon but I took a break because insp struck for this fic. Also! Because we are reaching the final stretch, I've already finished the planning for part 2 of the series where Clear meets Nero, and I'll probably have some writing for that done as well, meaning next semester's focus will be that fic ^^ Please keep an eye on me since I have a lot in store for next year!!
> 
> Anyway, I'm really really glad to be on break and home. I can't wait to go back to work tbh, and to see all my friends again. I'm just in a super good mood rn so I hope it holds. I'll leave you to the chapter now haha Enjoy!
> 
> Edit: I also added a quick thing to the end of last chapter, but just because it was probably missed, Clear lost his carbine in the fight with Marabbecca which is why he leans towards using her later in the chap lol Sorry about that www

Not having a phone was the least inconvenient of inconveniences, but an inconvenience nonetheless. From inside his “workshop” Dimitry couldn’t see the sun, so he had no way to tell what time it was, ever. A phone would have made that easier. Well, a phone would have allowed him to contact Adrian, but Malacoda could have just taken the sim card out if he and Minos wanted to stop him from calling anyone!

So many demons had been in and out of Dimitri’s “workshop” to be fitted, he couldn’t even keep track. He’d modified a couple basic types of weapons and just handed them out to whoever came in. Swords, knuckledusters, guns, shields, bracers, anything easy. He didn’t want to make them, but it guaranteed his survival for the moment—and he was hardly questioned about any excess parts.

At least he’d been working on his own project in the meantime. It had taken him what he assumed was a few days to get used to how the ship operated. At least three times a day his guard changed. Once in what he assumed was the morning, then once in the evening, and once in the middle of the night. Mostly, he was asleep through the morning change, but the night guard and day guard were never the same. It was the evening guard that was interesting though.

He was chatty. Too chatty for Minos’ standards, if Dimitri had to guess, but just talkative enough for his own uses. Even if he tried to hide behind the excuse of being a guard and not talking to prisoners, Dimitri had managed to weasel quite a bit of information out of him.

Such as, once a day, Malacoda sent a ship to shore to retrieve goods and materials from the mainland. It was mostly for food and more supplies for him to build with, but if Dimitri had to guess, he could use that to sneak off the ship. If he remembered right, it was a 15 minute ride back—and though he’d only walked the path once, he vaguely remembered how to get to Malacoda’s suite from where the smaller ships would dock. It would be a more difficult route, but if he could get back to Malacoda’s office he could get back to dry land.

Or, if he managed to make it to the deck, he could just find his way from there. Whatever kept him more hidden.

Another thing he’d found was a flaw in the camera. Between the end of his bed and the corner of the room was a small blindspot just under it. Although it was in view of the door, the guards didn’t look at him unless he was making racket. So, he’d taken to sleeping with his head towards that side. Lights out happened at the same time every day and then night vision would go on, indicated by a small red dot just below the lense. He’d been provided with some lamps by the desk if he wanted to keep working. Hiding one under the bed worked well enough to continue working on a weapon for himself in the blindspot. Pretending to throw it in a fit of frustration hadn't even been the hardest part. 

Malacoda and Minos occasionally came to visit him. The first time, Dimitri thought he’d been found out. But having a ridiculous amount of wires strewn about the room hid the lamp under the bed from Malacoda’s leisurely sweep, and a well-timed (albeit coincidental) bite to his own tongue had stopped him from ratting himself out to Minos. He never was good at lying. But he was good at biting himself when he talked to fast. His tongue was still a bit sore but he’d take it over his weapon being found out.

He’d been using ‘lights out’ to count the days. Eight 'lights out.' Eight days. It had taken him a little over half that to finish his new weapon. He’d finish the fine tuning, and then he’d do it. He’d break out and make his way back to Adrian, back to home.

* * *

 

The barge loomed on the horizon. Dante didn't even bother with trying to sneak on once he'd convinced a couple mindless goons to reel them up. Before they could even trip the alarm he'd sliced the demons to pieces. Then, he tripped the alarm himself. 

"What the hell did you do that for?!" Clear demanded, following him towards the center of the deck. 

"Why waste time trying to find the scythe when I could just bring it right to me?" 

That... was sound logic. But what about finding Dimitri? If this put him in danger, or something happened to the barge and it sunk before they could find him... should they split up? Maybe that was the plan—

He wasn't given time to voice is thoughts. They were surrounded almost instantly by demons in suits, most armed with guns of Dimitri's modding. It was unfortunate one got a lucky shot while turning the corner that hit Clear just above the hip. 

He stumbled back with a grunt and drew Grendel, letting it gnash freely. It bit most of the bullets out of the air, then ripped into the wall next to Clear. He shot it out at the demons in front of him; even though it threw some of them overboard, it barely did a dent to the numbers rounding the corner. He didn't even have a second to glance over his shoulder and see how Dante was handling the crowd. But, he could hear the man cleaving through a hoard. This wouldn't work out if they couldn't separate the groups... 

“Hey, give me Marabbecca!”

Dante tossed the bow over his shoulder to clear Clear. Even though it pained his hip, he jumped to catch it and landed in a crouch. It took him less than a second to draw a set of three arrows and fire. From where they hit the wall and ground, they splintered outward and formed a wall. He could see some demons get caught in it, so for good measure he shot the exposed heads and arms to freeze them over too. 

"Wouldn't this have been easier if you'd  _waited?"_

"Where's the fun!" Dante crowed from above Clear. He was using Airistotle to kebob demons and launch them over the edge. Stabbing the weapon into the ground, he shot himself up into the air so Clear could take a few shots with Marabbecca as a crossbow and finish off the last few demons. Each bolt exploded into a spiky ball of ice from inside each demon he hit, ripping them apart from the inside out. 

“You’re a natural at that,” Dante whistled as he slid down Airistotle's staff. 

“You’ve seen me when I throw my knives, I was always better at a range.”

"Good thing Marabbecca's a bow. I think we should head towards the main deck, seems like the place to be to find both Dimitri and a demon scythe yeah?" 

"I was thinking that too. But you get to go first." 

"Don't you want to take the lead?" 

" _You_ triggered the alarms, so  _you_ get to eat bullets first." 

* * *

 

“Hey. Chatty Cathy,” Dimitri hissed to the guard. Pressed against the door, he could hear the guard’s warbling voice on the other side of the window. Not too loud, but clear enough.

“No talking,” the guard grunted. Dimitri rolled his eyes.

“But I’m dying of boredom. Don’t you think that guy, Malacoda, would be upset if I _died_ of a lack of mental stimulation?”

“Malacoda’s just a human, he has no real power.”

“Oooh, don’t let him hear you say that. Minos then.”

At the name drop, the guard shuddered. Dimitri grinned to himself.

“I figured. Come o~n, I don’t have many questions.”

The guard gulped, but remained silent. After prodding him a few more times, he finally gave in. It took Dimitri everything he had not to fist pump in victory.

“So you’re a demon, right?”

“We all are. Except Malacoda, of course.”

“What’s stopping you from overthrowing him?”

“Our lord Minos, and King Mundus. They need him. I don’t see why though, we shouldn’t have to _pay_ for anything when we can just take it.”

“You’re paying? What a waste!” Dimitri crowed. He was leaning against the door, his arm pressed on the other side of his body so it was covered from the camera. His weapon—a set of bracers with armor up to his shoulder and blades over his knuckles on one side—Regalia fit around his arm snuggly. He hoped he could make it work, this would be the test run.

“Say, speaking of payment, I was never paid for the scythe I made. Any idea where that is?”

“The… scythe?”

“Haven’t you heard? Maybe it’s too high for your pay-grade. Aren’t they trying to find someone to use it?”

“Oh! That scythe. Yeah, I tried it, couldn’t even lift it. It sapped my energy and made me a little more than a human.”

“Oops. Hey, where’s the tryouts? Do you think Minos would let me join in?”

“No. Your job is here—“

“Then maintenance. Upkeep. I made it, I should be sure it’s still functioning properly. Where is it?”

“I can’t tell you that—“

Suddenly, the alarm went off, red light bursting to life up and down the hall. Dimitri lashed out, gripping the band across his palm. Regalia jerked into motion with the momentum of his arm combined with the pressure trigger springing it forward. The blades glinted, smashing through the thin layer of glass that was his window, and slicing clean through the guard’s neck. Blood splattered across the hall. It was gross, Dimitri wrinkled his nose—Adrian was always better at dealing with this kind of stuff.

Blood splashed up his arm when he jerked Regalia back. It swirled up around his arm to rest in place at his shoulder. He’d been given a couple of Bahamut carcasses, and using their snake parts he was able to make a couple blades that moved and swirled like snakes. That was the basis for Regalia’s design; hopefully Adrian or Dante could use it better whenever he was able to give it to him. And hopefully, he could use that right now.

Alarms were blaring. Dimitri counted seconds in his head to keep calm. He shoved his arm as far out the window as he could, and manipulated the trigger in his palm as best he could to guide Regalia down to the guard’s belt. There, he hooked one of the blades onto the ring of keys—a classic maneuver—and pulled them back to him.

A second later he had the door unlocked. What idiot allowed it to be unlocked from the inside? Well, that wasn’t his concern, not when he was free to run down the hallways and find his way off the ship. Maybe he’d get lucky and find the scythe along the way, then he could get the information to Adrian and Dante and they’d figure out what to do with it all afterwards.

Dimitri didn’t waste any time. Every time he came to a corner, he pressed his body into the wall, then listened before peaking his head out. Multiple times he’d had to duck back and hold his breath, lest any demons see him. Along his way up he passed by a map that told him where he was. Two floors up was the deck. All he had to do was find the engine room and he could get up from there.

That task… was much easier done than said. All he did was follow the pipes until he found it, and then getting to the stairs from there was easy. Or, it would have been, except two patrolling demons intercepted him. He recognized his own guns in their hands; the spread shots he’d made for them made them lethal at medium range, but he couldn’t risk any shrapnel hitting him even if they shot from their far distance.

He figured they could smell him when one of them stopped. He held his breath and ducked under the stairs. They were advancing towards him on the platform above.

“Smell that? Smells like human.”

“What? You haven’t even been off this boat, you don’t know what a human smells like.”

“Yeah I do! Sweet, a little salty—what do they call that, umami?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

There was a slap to the back of one’s head. Her glasses fell off, tumbling down the stairs. The two demons made their way down the steps, right above him. Dimitri froze, forcing himself to hold his breath and not make a single sound.

“Aw, you broke my shades!”

“You can get a new pair!”

“You give me yours!”

They bickered for a little more. Come on, come on, come on, just go away already…

“Anyway,” the second demon started, “I swear I was smelling a human right around here.”

“It’s probably just Malacoda’s stench. Sniff again, I only smell demon.”

The second gave a sniff. Then another, then another, and then a sigh.

“Damn, I swear I smelled one.”

“You’re delusional. Come on, we gotta get to the deck, this detour wasted time.”

The deck. Right. Follow them. Dimitri waited for them to head up the stairs and rush across the platform before peeking out of his hiding spot. It was strange to him that there were only two demons here, they hadn't seemed in a rush beforehand. But something other than him had triggered the alarms, what emergency could be happening...? 

He followed them to a door labelled 'exit' and waited exactly 90 seconds before shoving the door open. Instead of finding open air of the deck, he found another hallway leading to a split. Down one way he could hear the sound of gunfire and fighting. If he wasn't mistaken he could hear... Dante? Yelling? His self-preservation instinct was screaming at him _'fuck no, do not go that way,'_ but his irrational need to get back to Arms Race shrieked  _'fuck yes go that way!!'_  

So we went to the right, towards the gunfire. 

He was about to round the corner when a man in red was thrown around it instead. In his utter shock, Dimitri threw his hand out in a sloppy punch, puncturing the chest of whoever turned. 

Dante yelped a string of curses upon being stabbed in the chest by Regalia's three blades. So Dimitri did hear right. 

“Hey, Clear, did we say about having each other’s backs?!”

"Thanks." 

Clear stepped out from behind Dante, patting his shoulder as he went. His quick strides came to an abrupt stop when he saw Dimitri. For all of a single breath they were silent, and then in the next instant Clear dove for his friend. Dimitri couldn't pull Regalia off fast enough to  _not_ let it rip out of Dante's chest when he was barreled into. Clear largely ignored the demon's protests. 

He had a stain of blood and a hole in his shirt just above his belt, but otherwise there was no damage to him. Dante, meanwhile, seemed like he'd been plucking bullets out of his wounds for a couple hours, but of course he was walking them off. Clear's arms were tight around Dimitri's shoulders. He hugged back just as fiercely. 

"I was so worried I wouldn't find you—" Clear choked up as he spoke. Dimitri had never heard him cry. 

"I didn't even think I'd see you till I got back. Thanks for coming for me." 

"I'd never leave you alone." 

"Sorry to break this up, but more of them are coming," Dante interjected. He offered hands to both of them when they broke their hug, pulling them up to their feet. 

"We need to find the scythe, do you know where it is?" Clear asked as they started heading down the third hallway, unexplored to both parties. 

"No, but I know where Malacoda's suite is. I can get you there," Dimitri said. 

"Good enough. If we find him we'll probably find the scythe," Dante said, a grin on his face. "Or, we just make him tell us!" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Sometimes I write really good one-liners and "what did we say about having each others' backs?!" "thanks" is one of them._
> 
> Anyway I got back from an ACE concert and immediately wanted to write this, so I'll edit the end again later lol;; I just want this up and then to sleep!! It was really really fun but I'm mega tired haha Nightyyyyy everyone, love you <3


	18. Mission 18: Hook, Line, and Sinker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm a sucker for friends fighting each other. Also boomer says yeet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took two days off after beating my body to hell at work lol Also I just needed some time to have no social interaction, so I finally got some writing done lol. I should have a second update today too ^^ 
> 
> Funny story, I have to break in new shoes because one of the nights at work, we were moving hella garbage and stuff out of the basement. So the guy we were working with kept giving us (the kids) old shelving to break down, and while beating something silly I cratered the sole of my shoe back into it and was walking on a bubble right between my arch and my heel for like three days LOL;; Was hoping to make those last for a little longer cuz I really liked them, but I did scrape the heels to hell from normal walking so.,,, Shoes just aren't made to withstand beatings like they used to be dudes, it sucks.

“Oh dear, oh dear, they triggered the alarms,” Malacoda hummed to himself. From his seat in the window of his suite, he could see demons scrambling to get to the opposite end of the deck. Many of them were being tossed overboard, and if the ice erupting from the railing was anything to go by, the mermaid that had been circling their ship since they docked was no longer going to be needing payment in the form of demons to eat.

“Kind of them to alert us they were here,” Minos quipped.

“Hmm. Do you think they finally came for my little engineer friend?”

“Of course they did. The human, Adrian, cares for him quite a bit—“ Minos tilted Bea’s chin up with a single clawed finger. Obediently, she looked up, although she said nothing, and otherwise didn’t move. “—according to my… little friend here. We both knew it was only a matter of time.”

“Do you think Lord Mundus will be happy with our work?” Malacoda turned slightly to Minos. Near his seat, he had the scythe propped up within his reach. Finding someone to use it had proved most difficult amongst the demon ranks of his men, and so far the only people who had been able to use it had been Adrian, and Dante Sparda himself. Malacoda played with the tassel at the end of the staff; he absently wondered if Dimitri had put some kind of lock on it to make it be like that?

“Once Dante Sparda is dead, yes.”

“I’m frankly excited.” Malacoda stood with a spin, and waltzed towards a side of the room that had a table. Many bottles of expensive alcohols and scrumptious little finger foods had been presented to them. Malacoda snatched a random bottle and poured two glasses.

“Who would have known that excavating Mallet Island for a new resort would have lead to this!”

When he offered the second glass to Minos, he was just given a look of disdain. Malacoda shrugged and took both back to his seat by the window. He couldn’t see them anymore, so they must have gone below deck towards the engine room in an attempt to find Dimitri.

“Of course, my father has been asking after all of my transactions. Hired bodies, weapons, even ‘borrowing’ one of his own ships from him and renovating it. But it won’t matter in a few more days. With Dante gone, Lord Mundus can finally truly claim this world as his. And I’ll be paid back in full, won’t I? You always tease me for being wooed by things such as money and food and sex, but us humans have such short lives! Why shouldn’t we indulge in every opportunity we get!”

“You’re the most disgusting one I’ve yet to meet,” Minos sighed. Malacoda laughed at him.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Malacoda sipped at his drinks. Minos stayed standing by the window, observing all the demons he’d called to this world scrambling around in their human disguises. Slowly many of them had been rotting away, causing more and more demon parts to become apparent, so Malacoda had hired more servants; they still had yet to arrive to the ship, but if Dante died today they wouldn’t even need them. To see his Lord’s will finally become a reality… It would all be worth it in the end.

“Oh, oh, look. It seems they’ve made it out. And they found my engineer friend! So exciting.”

Across the way, the group of three—only three? Minos swore there were five, where had the two women gone…?—emerged from a door just below the wheelhouse across from them. Malacoda glanced down at his stone bracelet, noting to himself how much more the organic veins under it were growing into his arm. That couldn’t be a good thing, but he’d deal with it later. Then, he gave it a little shake so the eye in the center opened.

“Lord Mundus. They’re here. Shall I report again once they’ve been exterminated?”

“Make it quick,” the eye growled, gravelly and deep, but soft due to it’s confined space. Malacoda nodded and stood again. Outside, the sun was rising; had an entire night really passed? The hours truly were too short.

“Time to put your little pet to work Minos!” Malacoda said with a grin. Then, he grabbed the scythe with both hands just below the blade, and with a mighty grunt, smashed one of the windows as he tossed it out onto the deck below. 

“What do the kids say these days? _‘Yeet?’”_

* * *

 

Upon exiting the winding hallway, the group came to the deck. Directly across from them, Dimitri was able to point out the suite with all of it’s windows.

“Malacoda’s up there! There was someone else with him, a demon named Minos with mind-control powers. They don’t work well on humans though, so we should be safe.”

“Good! The sooner we get the scythe back, the sooner we find Mundus and destroy him for good.”

At the two agreements they gave, Dante quickly moved across the deck, up the stairs to a pair of doors below the suite. Clear pulled Dimitri along behind him. They had traded weapons in the hallway, so Regalia sat comfortably at Clear’s shoulder. The blood Dimitri had splashed on it earlier from both Dante and at least one other demon was feeding his tattoo nicely and keeping him charged.

Just as Dante’s fingers brushed the door, there was a crash above them. Shattered glass was the first thing that rained down on them. Clear shoved Dimitri back out of the way of the glass, but Dante was the one who ultimately pulled Dimitri out of the way of Mundus Cereris slamming blade-first into the ground between them. The gouged metal held it in place well, although the blade was buried at a surprisingly shallow depth for having dropped three stories.

“Shit, Dimitri, you okay?” Dante asked.

“Y-yeah, I’m good, thanks for the save. Adrian!”

They two looked back to where Clear had jumped back. Dante expected to see relief on his face that especially Dimitri wasn’t injured, but instead all he saw was wide-eyed shock. The kid stood still, hands shaking, mouth completely hanging open—then suddenly his expression contorted in rage and he charged forward with a furious roar. Gripping Mundus Cereris and kicking it up from the ground, Clear was swinging the scythe up at Dante before he could question _why._ Luckily, Clear was slower with it than Dante was with Rebellion, allowing him to draw his sword and block the attack. The clash of the weapons sent them both stumbling back.

“Adrian—!” Dimitri yelped, scrambling to his feet. Dante put an arm in front of him before he could rush into the battle and shoved him out of the way of another one of Clear’s slashes. Mundus Cereris clanged against Rebellion but this time Clear alone staggered back. With another furious cry he dragged the scythe up at Dante again, flipping the blade above his head when it missed and smashing it back into the ground. The weight of the scythe coupled with the momentum of it made the ship’s metal deck _crater._

“He trusted you—!!” Clear struggled to remove the scythe from the indent. Dante held Dimitri back from running to him with an arm out.

“I thought you didn’t kill humans—!! Dante—!!”

“Adrian—what are you talking about? Dante hasn’t hurt anyone!” Dimitri yelled back. But Clear had freed the scythe and was preparing to charge again, like he didn’t even hear D yell. Dante glanced at the alchemist, then back at Clear’s enraged face. He didn’t have time to explain this but there was definitely something demonic at play here. Well, first things first.

Dante grabbed Dimitri’s collar and shoved him off to the side just before Clear rushed him again.The weight of the scythe staggered Dante with every hit, but it was easy for him to defend from while Clear was depending solely on his own strength to lift it. Up close, he could see tears pricking Clear’s eyes, one rushing down his face. Every strike seemed to be getting faster—Dante felt it through Rebellion that Clear had started using the scythe’s demonic capabilities.

“Don’t come closer!! He thinks I killed you!” Dante yelled. He swung Rebellion up as Clear swung the scythe down, parrying the blow and making him stumble back.

“What are you talking about?” Dimitri screamed back. He looked so panicked watching them fight. “Adrian, I’m right here—!!”

“I’ll slap some sense into him! You just get off this barge and back to shore, and get Trish and Lady on the phone! Pronto!”

“But—“

“Hurry up, D!!”

At Dante’s snarl, he startled. Looking to Clear one last time, Dimitri clenched his fists and turned to run. Dante couldn’t help but feel relieved with the kid out of the way, now he could really throw his all into calming Clear down. Readying Rebellion again for Clear’s next onslaught, he took a breath to steady himself.

“Clear. Listen up. Whatever you saw—“

“I know what I saw,” Clear snarled. Dante, shocked, braced Rebellion when Clear up and _threw_ the scythe at him. Mundus Cereris spun parallel to the ground; knowing the scythe had been constructed out of Mundus’ remains, it probably had an aversion to gravity that was making it feel lighter. The friction increased with every rotation, heating Rebellion’s blade until it almost burned Dante’s hand. He grunted and shoved to interrupt the rotation which threw the scythe back enough to bury itself in the deck as it fell. It worked but it gave him no time to block either of Clear’s knives when they were thrown at him.

One landed in his left shoulder. Clear had been much less kind with his aim of the other. It embedded itself just under Dante’s jaw on his right, making him choke. He spit blood, already feeling the poison make the wounds go numb. Clear was in his face a second later, gripping both knives and ripping them from Dante’s body with enough force to make him jerk like a ragdoll. Dante backed up at the same time Clear did. He gripped the wound at his jaw while it started to heal, giving a hiss at the poison being flushed from his veins making him feel heavier than usual.

Clear steadied an enraged look at him, smearing Dante’s blood off Tatzelwurm and onto his arms. His tattoo pulsed bright red where it was fed, writhing gleefully at the offer of Sparda’s blood. Both knives were returned their sheathes at his side. He then moved to the scythe and picked it up easily with a single hand. Dante huffed to himself. Clear advanced on him again, wing unfurling from his back in a clear display of intimidation. Dante figured he didn’t even notice he was doing it. Instead of letting him keep up his attacks now that he was Curse Triggering, Dante withdrew Ivory and shot towards Clear’s feet to make him stop mid-step and back up.

The difference between sparring with Clear normally and _this,_ was that Clear now had killing intent. The only time Dante had seen him like this was when he was Enraged when they first met, and even then he hadn’t taken the kid seriously. But now that he had four Devil Arms, all of which he knew how to use, and one of which could be potentially truly lethal, Dante knew he couldn’t just play around. His wound wasn’t fully healed and the poison hadn’t been completely flushed from his system, but it hadn’t made his vision blurry so he could power through it.

“Name’s not really fitting you right now,” Dante huffed, raising Rebellion again. He wouldn’t hurt him. All he needed to do was disarm him and calm him down.

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Clear said. His voice was low, a near-growl. “I’ll kill you.”

“Look, whatever you watched me do. I swear to you it’s an illusion.”

“Don’t you _dare_ try to kid me about this! You strung us along for this long—What, just for some fun?! Was that it all along, huh?! Were you just playing with your food?!”

Clear was suddenly in front of Dante, scythe about to come down hard across his shoulder. Dante ducked under the blow and parried the next few hits, feeling his speed come back the longer the fight went on. While depending on his Curse Trigger, Clear was much more agile with the scythe, spinning it around and using momentum to his advantage. Whenever he missed he gouged the deck with the sheer weight of the weapon; once he really started building up speed, Dante resorted to Trickster Style to back out of the way fast enough.

Clear gave chase. Dante didn’t expect him to be able to move to him in the speed of a blink, but it must have been his own blood harnessed by his Curse Trigger giving him the ability to do that. His eyes were ferocious. He wasn’t crying anymore, if he had been in the first place. All that was in him was anger and hatred. He wasn’t even being his usual cautious self at this point, only depending on brute strength to overwhelm Dante so he couldn’t even get a hit in. It was a game of cat and mouse really: Dante would blink away, and Clear would follow after. Swing, blink, miss, chase. If it wasn’t for Clear’s current quick movements, Dante might have been able to snatch back Marabecca and freeze one or both of his feet in place.

Damn it. Dante couldn’t get a good grip on the scythe without losing an arm. He clicked his tongue as Clear spun the scythe again, and allowed himself to back up. Then, he stabbed Rebellion into the ground in the weapon’s path, catching the staff of the weapon just under the blade. The weight of it almost threw Rebellion out of his hand, but he held fast so the sword dragged another line in the metal. Dante gave a solid kick to Clear’s gut to shove him back, but despite sliding back the kid didn’t let go of Mundus Cereris; instead, he just held fast to the end of the staff and jerked it with him, ripping Rebellion out of the ground and swinging her up. Clear yelped at the nick he received across his eye from the tip of the blade.

Blood streamed steadily from the little cut, dripping into his eye and making him blink repeatedly before simply shutting it. Dante followed him to go on the offensive this time, intending to give Mundus Cereris a good enough smack that he could just knock it out of Clear’s hand. Clear seemed to see what he was doing and backed up as well, spinning the blade in reverse to kick metal debris up into Dante’s eyes from where it damaged the ground again. He barely flinched and moved in again with a quick thrust. Clear gasped and raised the staff of the scythe, but Dante locked them quickly with the hilt of Rebellion, the blade barely sliding just under Clear’s arm. Regalia had snaked over to his side, protecting him thankfully, even if Dante was being careful not to hurt the kid.

Clear was shaking. His wing drooped, and started to retreat to his back. The effects of Dante’s blood were clearly wearing off. Dante’s own wounds had healed, too, leaning the battle back into his favor. Clear’s breath was so fast, and Dante could almost feel his heartbeat pulsing through his palms into Mundus Cereris itself. Dante pressed Clear again, using his weight against the other hunter to make sure he couldn’t be shoved back. Clear grunted under him and _tried,_ his brow furrowing when he couldn’t muster the strength.

“You calm yet? Got it all out?”

“How the fuck do you expect me to calm down?!”

“If you just listen to me—“

“Why should I?! You told me you knew what it was like to have and lose a brother!! Do you even feel guilty—?!”

Dante saw Clear release the scythe with one hand and jerked back out of range of his swipe. He hadn’t even taken the time to see how fast Regalia moved but one second it was at Clear’s side and the next it was circling his fist. Dante, against his better judgement, released Rebellion so as to not accidentally take off Clear’s arm, and went for his guns again as a defensive measure. Clear let go of the scythe too, and they clashed in a dangerous fistfight. Every time Regalia extended past one of Clear’s fists Dante shot at it to knock him off balance, but each time Clear managed to recover to block an attack from Dante. Clearly fatigue was starting to get to him, as each strike was slower and weaker than the last. But Clear kept it up, kept attacking, his rage still boiling in his eyes and pushing him to keep moving like he still had demon blood racing through him.

Clear grunted as he went for a fierce right hook. Dante instead ducked under the swing and holstered Ebony. Using his now free hand he landed a punch to Clear’s stomach, knocking the kid back to where their weapons had been discarded. He heard the breath get punched out of his opponent, but knowing Clear that wouldn’t be enough to deter him. Sure enough, Clear lifted Mundus Cereris again with a frustrated yell. His strength was definitely failing him and he was pushing himself past his limits and then some. Dante moved in again with the intention of finishing this in one more hit—

Regalia shot out and nailed him in the chest, piercing through his vest. When it retracted, his blood splattered across Clear’s knuckles to feed the tattoo and fueling his strength again. Dante tried to back out of range again but Clear was faster, hooking Mundus Cereris around the back of his neck. The staff smashed into the side of neck with enough force to make him choke again and he regretted going so easy on the kid in his attempt not to truly hurt him. He was jerked forward and his wrist was grabbed, but Dante barely even registered the loss of his gun from his hand.

Ivory was pointed in his face. He heard Clear pull the trigger before he felt the bullet impact his skull. 


	19. Mission 19: Counting the Seconds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry I had a lot of fun beating the shit out of Dante, but he's immortal and can take it so it's fine.

Frantic fingers dialed numbers on the ship’s emergency phone. Dimitri had been lucky enough to find one on his route back to where he boarded earlier in the week. He forced himself to take a steady breath to make sure he punched in Devil May Cry’s number on the first try. When there was no answer on the third ring, Dimitri slapped the top of the phone and let out a frustrated noise. Come on, someone had to pick up!!

“Devil May Cry,” Trish finally answered in the middle of the last ring.

“Oh thank god,” Dimitri let out a relieved sigh.

“Dimitri? Is that you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me. In the flesh and all that.”

“Dante and Clear left yesterday morning to find you—“

“They did. But you and Lady need to get here too. I don’t know what all happened but—“ Dimitri paused, taking in a deep breath, then continued, “we were on our way to find Malacoda, the guy who kidnapped me—and then the scythe fell from a window and now Adrian’s trying to kill Dante with it and—“

“Are either of them injured?”

“I don’t know. Dante made me run before I could see anything. Can you get here quickly?”

“It’s a long drive away from here, but maybe… Just hang tight, we’ll be on our way shortly.”

“Please hurry…”

Trish hung up. Dimitri followed soon after, leaning against the wall for a moment longer. He took in another deep breath. A long drive didn’t guarantee they’d make it before something happened… Then he had to do something if he could. That scythe _could_ kill Dante, it wasn’t a guarantee, but only if he didn’t get cut with it. And a determined Clear _would_ find a way to cut him. Dimitri just kept making himself think of plans to stop them and destroy the damn weapon as he rushed back towards the suite. He had to stop them. He had to prove he was alive.

* * *

 

Beatrice grit her teeth. Minos had probably noticed her heavier breathing, but must have just assumed it was her exerting her powers, not actively fighting his control. Even if her illusion had worn off, she could still hear them fighting. Damn it, she could care less about Dante, but hearing Adrian fight him made her feel… Horrible. Regret, rage, sadness, pain, those were just some of the things she felt swirling in her chest. Even though she’d been bullied into sending him the text and luring him here, she didn’t want to let Dante’s blood be on Adrian’s hands if he somehow managed to win. And if he lost…

She’d never forgive herself for letting her friend die.

At least Minos was cocky enough to ignore her in her little corner. It gave her time to think.

Minos and Malacoda stood at the broken window, watching. With their backs turned, she had some time to look around the room, find an escape. Out the window was her best bet, probably, and it would directly alert them to her presence. But with the sun rising and her powers growing, if Minos took control of her again and forced her to reveal her demonic form, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to survive if Dante attacked her. Also, he’d heal from the blindness, but Adrian probably wouldn’t.

Shit, there were gunshots now. Who had been shot? _Had_ anybody even been shot? She had to go. She had to _run._

The door wasn’t too far from her. Her breath was still shaky and her body still didn’t feel like her own, but if she could just get one foot in front of the other she could make it out. Clenching her fist—good, she could move her fingers—Bea did her best to shuffle one step over, but with the way her foot barely shifted, just a little more would have had her toppling over and alerting them.

Damn it. Maybe the best thing was to release her true form right here. Though, if Minos took control of her again, she probably would attack Dante and then not survive if he attacked and yada yada she was screwed. Maybe in the brief second of shock she could do it. Well, they hadn’t confiscated her phone, worst case scenario she could just use her mother’s charm to teleport out of there.

Taking a deep breath, Bea let the sun bleeding in from the windows fuel her. It wasn’t that much of a charge, still being early morning and all, but it was more than enough to help her fully clear her head. Below her the gunshots had quieted. The fight must have come to a halt, either they came to an understanding or someone had died. She needed to move. Now.

Releasing her demonic form had once been described to her as multiple flash grenades going off at one time. She no longer felt tethered to the world around her, now instead becoming a mass of light particles floating through any light surrounding her. The less light the more corporeal she became, so she still knew her main body could be heavily attacked. But as soon as she dove out of the window she would be mostly untouchable.

Taking advantage of the men’s shock, she dove for the glass. Weaving in and out of the light particles allowed her to clear the space in less than a second—just before she could crash through it though, pain burst from Bea's side. How had anyone caught her?! She halted in her tracks and fell to the ground, screaming. It felt like her organs were being compressed and ripped apart at the same time. It wasn’t that she’d been stabbed by Malacoda, more that Mundus’ space-rending powers were probably tearing her in half from the inside out. Her body seized up and stopped responding to her until the demon king released his hold on her and she was left to cough blood.

“Foolish child, did you really think you could escape me?”

Peeking up, Malacoda was standing over her, fist outstretched. Where his stone bracelet met his arm seemed to be growing up his elbow, veins pulsing under his skin. His eyes weren’t his own, instead a sickly yellow color no human should have. His voice wasn’t coming out his own either; instead, it was a mix of his own rich voice and Mundus’ deep booming one. He released his fist and the pain subsided, leaving Bea to sob.

Maybe if she died Dante would feel it or something. Fuck, she wouldn’t even get to apologize… No, she had to make that right, at least, before she died. Damn it. Damn it!! The edge of the sill was still nowhere near close enough. And even if she had the light of the rising sun flooding over her, she couldn’t _heal_ with it. But the windowsill was the only shot she had. Malacoda was still standing over her, and Minos looked like he was getting ready to advance on her to take control again.

Bea’s hand shot out. Between herself and her captors, she summoned a solid wall. She would have laughed at Malacoda turning and running into it, but he was clenching his fist and she was _dying_ again. Creating a solid platform under her, she mustered as much strength as she could to lift one side and fling herself towards the window. By some miracle she managed to make it to the edge, grunting as she tumbled over the side of it and fell towards the deck below.

It wasn’t a long drop but she was running out of consciousness. The pain in her side faded again; Malacoda—no, Mundus now—must have released his hold on her again. Using the last of her strength she bit her own cheek to keep herself awake and created a platform of light under herself, smashing into it with enough force to make her own skull rattle. Wow, she really had dropped farther than she intended. Continuing to chew at her inner cheek she made the platform lower her down to the ground—although, she didn’t entirely make it, passing out not even a whole minute later.

* * *

 

Dante’s head whipped back with the force of the bullet point-blank nailing him in the forehead. The gunshot echoed and his head lulled forward, his body slumping with the scythe as Clear dropped it. He fell to his knees a second later too, barely able to fight the sobs shaking him.

What the fuck had happened… One minute they had the scythe and the demon king within their grasp, the next Dante just up and killed Dimitri… It didn’t make sense… Dante wasn’t like that… Clear had _convinced_ himself Dante wasn’t like that… But that must have been part of the act huh. Get them to trust him so they’d be easy pickings when Mundus revived. As much as he didn’t want to believe it, he knew it had to be the truth. He'd been told Sparda was one of Mundus’ highest generals. Like father like son, wasn’t that the saying? Of course he could never trust a demon, if he hadn’t made that mistake, D would still be… Would still be…

There was the sound of a body impacting the floor behind him. Despite himself, Clear turned to see—he didn’t want to look at Dante’s corpse anymore. The thing that landed was a nearly blinding mass of light. He could vaguely see the outline of a body inside, but its side was cratered and it was bleeding out. Another demon…? As he was looking up to see where it had come from, it speaking caught his attention.

“Adri…an…”

“… Bea?”

Her head nodded weakly. Clear’s eyes widened and he scrambled over to her, pulling her into his arms to shake her awake. She murmured at him when he called her name. Her eyelids fluttered open. Where her head had hit the ground was bleeding too, covering his arm where he held her.

“Hey, hey Bea, hey! Stay with me. Come on!”

 _Don’t trust a demon,_ his mind supplied. He shook his head.

She mumbled something under her breath, then chuckled to herself. Clear leaned closer to hear to hear her rasp.

“Devil May Cry and all that… Appropriate, isn’t it… I’m really sorry I let this happen, Adri…”

“Stop it, you’re talking nonsense—“ First D, then Dante by his own hand, he couldn’t lose Bea too.

“Just—Just try to stay awake, I’ll—I’ll do something, I can—“

Bea’s eyes shut again. It was so hard to see her face, between the dimming light surrounding her and his own tears. Clear gave her another shake. Under her breath, she hissed another apology.

“Your friend’s okay… My illusion… I made an illusion… Dante didn’t kill…”

She was mumbling now, barely intelligible. Clear just held her until she went silent, slumping in his arms. Her light was dimming down until he was just holding her main body, and even that was starting to go dim. He cursed to himself, holding her close in a tight hug, allowing himself to openly sob into her shoulder. That really was it, huh. The three people he cared about most, lost in one day.

“I was trying to tell you.”

Clear’s head snapped to look over his shoulder. Dante was sitting up, rubbing at his forehead. If Clear looked closely, he could see scales retreating to behind Dante’s neck where the scythe surely would have beheaded him. Relief and rage mingled in Clear’s chest, but he eventually settled for _tired,_ deciding he was just going crazy with all the loss in the air. Fuck it, he’d entertain the ghost.

“You really did a number. Shit. Been a while since I got shot in the head. With my own gun, no less. Good thing you didn’t actually use it right I'd have been dead for real…”

“How can you be so casual about _just dying?”_

“You’re being overdramatic, kid, I’m fine. And so’s Dimitri.”

“I don’t believe you.” Clear had never heard Dante so fed-up. Dante motioned around with both hands.

“You see a body anywhere? Any blood? You were so single-mindedly set on killing me you didn’t even notice that we didn’t have to dance around a corpse.”

Clear took a moment to process it, taking his time to take in the mangled battlefield. He looked back at Bea—he almost sobbed again when he could still see her breathing shallowly—and realized that what she had been saying made sense. They had been fighting with sunlight out, she would have had the power to make an illusion like that… And she was clearly threatened, judging by her wounds and how she’d been thrown off the ledge… She had been vouching for Dante too, just before she’d passed out, hadn’t she. Clear looked to Dante again.

“You swear it? He’s not dead? You didn’t kill him?”

Dante clicked his tongue. “I told you before, I’m not in the business of killing humans. Especially if they’re friends of mine.”

Another wave of tears hit Clear, the uncomfortable burning in his nose making him clench is eyes tight. He couldn’t look at Dante, instead turning back to Bea. Shit… he really almost killed him over a misunderstanding… how would he have lived with himself if he’d… he’d…

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Dante’s hand was on his shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze. Clear shook his head—he hadn’t even heard the hunter walk over—but didn’t shrug out of his hold.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have listened, I…”

“Just buy me a drink and a pizza when we get back, and we’ll call it even, yeah? Extra large, no olives. Ooh, you can get me a strawberry sundae too. I sure could use one right about now.”

Clear couldn’t help it. He laughed at Dante’s nonchalance. Where it once put him on edge, now it was only a relief to hear. The hand on his shoulder gave him a gentle little shake, then retracted. Dante move away to gather up his weapons, leaving Clear to place Bea down and look her over. Just as he’d rested her with his jacket behind her head, the sound of quick footsteps came into his field of focus.

A second later, D’s arms were around his neck. The force he’d barreled into Clear with knocked him off balance so he was thrown on his ass—he’d barely caught himself before he was completely knocked to the floor.

“Adrian, what the hell, you scared the shit out of me!! I was telling you I was _right there,_ why wouldn’t you listen to me?! Hell, I really thought you two would kill each other…”

Clear’s shock wore off as Dimitri rambled. He returned his friend’s hold with both arms, brows furrowed behind D’s shoulder as if he was trying to hold back another wave of tears.

“I’m sorry. I was just so convinced he’d killed you, I couldn’t… I couldn’t think about anything else.”

“You know better than that, Dante only kills demons.”

“See, even Dimitri vouches for me!” Dante said. He’d brought Mundus Cereris over to them, but had placed Rebellion back on his back.

“I know. I know, I’m an idiot, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t bare the thought of…”

Dimitri pulled back and slapped Clear’s cheeks with both hands, _hard,_ not even pulling back when Clear yelped at him. Still, Clear let him do it, again and again and again, until Dimitri seemed satisfied and his face was stinging red; Clear figured he deserved it for being so stupid.

“Oooh, someone’s being a big dumb baby! I’m not going anywhere. Not any time soon. Not since I just got back.”

Clear put a hand over one of Dimitri’s and nodded. Then, he looked over to Bea. Still breathing, though shallow.

“What do we…”

“Can we get her out of here? She’s bleeding a lot but I should be able to help,” Dimitri answered immediately. His eyes kept flicking away from the puddle she was lying in.”

“What’s your plan, Mister Maker? She’s a demon, normal human medicine won’t work.”

“I figured as much… but I have alchemy! I might be able to reconstruct part of her body since there’s so many demons lying dead around here!”

“Better hurry then!”

So many things happened too quickly. Clear barely had time to get to his feet before Malacoda dove out of the broken window and landed on Dante’s back, shoving him against the floor. One of his arms was completely covered in stone now, up to his shoulder, and he used it to grip Dante’s head and slam his face into one of the gouged metal plates Clear had made earlier. It wouldn’t kill him, but it was certainly a nasty wound to see inflicted. Dimitri turned away and bit back his vomit. Clear made to move to defend them but Minos intercepted him. He pushed his glasses up so the sunlight reflected off of them.

“Move another step and I’ll behead you where you stand.”

“Hah. D told your mind control only works on demons. Nice bluff!”

Clear was fast to pull a knife from his side and toss it at Minos. The demon didn’t dodge out of shock and took the hit straight to his chest, staggering back. He coughed, spitting out a green poison that immediately started melting the metal it landed on. While Minos focused on pulling the knife out, Clear turned back to Dimitri to help haul Bea into his arms.

“She’s pretty light, get back to the shore so you can heal her. We’ll hold them off here.”

“But—Adrian!”

Dimitri was moving to stand but Bea gripped his shoulder. It was a gentle hold, not from her main body, but from a frail hand she had formed out of light.

“He’s right… can’t help here… we have to go…!”

Dimitri bit hard into his cheek. He looked at Adrian, then looked at Bea. And then, he scrambled to his feet with Bea in his arms and started running towards the wall of ice Adrian had made upon coming in.

He’d get back to shore. He'd heal Bea on the boat ride there. Count the seconds, calm down. He’d call Lady and Trish again. Keep counting seconds. He’d find a way to help. He just had to believe he’d see Adrian again soon. He just had to count the seconds until then. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my head, the way Bea's demon body works is that she's kind of like a fairy, surrounded by a larger outer body made of light. The fact that she can weave through light to dodge things speaks volumes that she believes Dante could be fast enough to hit her and ultimately take her down. I want to write more of her backstory in a later edition to the series, but I will say that she did meet Sparda with her mother when she was younger, and if back then he not only had access to Quicksilver Style but she knew he did and how it worked, then that's probably why she's so convinced Dante could be a lethal threat to her if they really fought.


	20. Mission 20: Mundus Cereris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took me so long to get to, I got really caught up in school work and didn't have motivation for this (been working on more cutesy things, some RWBY stuff lol my fair game shit and drawing commissions!) 
> 
> Anyway, I did a few small edits, but since it's all chapters 8-10, I'll just TL;DR here: basically I only changed the design of Clear's wings to resemble Dante's more, but they're going to change again at the end of this chapter and Never Change Again lol Honestly I don't know how well to explain Curse Trigger but it basically allows Parasite to take him over for a short time. I'm really sorry I didn't make that clear, to be honest I only had a very vague idea of what I wanted it to do. I figured out finally that Parasite is a Devil Arm that augments the user with parts its absorbed from other demons. That's why it's able to give Clear stat boosts and his wing/Curse Trigger. All along that was what I was aiming for but I honestly didn't know how to describe it until now.
> 
> At the end of the last chapter, the fic was 62K words. Not counting the epilogue if it ends at 69K words I'm gonna have a right good cackle lmaoooo So let's do this, 7K word chapter let's go.

Between getting shot in the head, being landed on, and having his face literally split in half on gouged metal not once, not twice, but _three times_ left him with a raging headache so bad he almost considered passing out. Dante’s healing was working on overdrive after he spit out the bullet formerly lodged in his brain, and it was now focusing on reconstructing his face every time this random demon slammed him into the ground.

Well, random demon was rude, he knew Mundus’ vile energy when he felt it.

There was a lot of yelling between Mundus, Clear, and Dimitri, but he couldn’t really focus on it. Every word made his head pound harder than the last. Damn, if he could just take a little nap, that would be amazing.

But he couldn’t. Out of his peripheral, he could see Dimitri scrambling away and carrying Bea with him. Then, in front of him, Minos staggered and collapsed onto his back. Hah, at least that was an easy fight out of the way. Clear took a step forward but Mundus smashed Dante’s head into the metal again.

“What are you going to do, _human?”_ Mundus snarled. His voice warbled, but only because Dante could barely hear over the pounding in his head.

“I have another knife. I’ll make you let him go.”

“You won’t! I’ll sooner crush his skull with my bare hand.”

That made Clear pause, it seemed. Could he survive it? Well, he was still alive now. Maybe his healing had just been slowed by the amount of wounds he’d taken… no, no, that wasn’t it. The scythe was still nearby, that must have been sapping his energy. Shit, anymore damage and he might actually _die._ But the stone along Malacoda’s arm had been growing steadily so maybe Mundus wasn’t at his full power yet… and if half of him was stuck in the scythe, then maybe he was bluffing. Well, the last time he’d gambled on his life, Lady had done him proud by shooting the cursed watch and freeing him. He knew he could trust Clear too if he tried to gamble now.

“Don’t you think it’s kinda pathetic?” Dante spoke as best he could around broken teeth. “You gave me shit about being half-human, and here you are, resorting to paying one off taking one over just so you can get another shot at killing me?”

“Silence!” Mundus screeched, and threw his face into the ground again, releasing him there. Pulling himself off of the metal was definitely not easy with an entire man still crouching on his back, so at least Clear was there to help him out.

“Back off!!”

Clear yanked the scythe from the ground (if the sound was anything to go by) as he rushed to Dante’s aid, and swung it at Malacoda. Mundus. Mundacoda. Fuck his head hurt. Mundus jumped back, allowing Dante to finally get to his feet and let his face start fully healing.

“You gonna be okay?” Clear asked, now standing between him and Mundus, scythe up. His tattoo was fading to green _fast_ where his hands touched the staff. He’d have to drop it soon.

“Yeah, just gimme a sec. My caved-in face is not for the faint-of-heart.”

“Is being near the scythe slowing your healing down?”

If he focused on it, the scythe was sapping energy, but less so than when it was right on top of him. Yeah, that confirmed the slowness of his healing across all six—seven? he’d lost count—wounds.

“Just a bit. But what goes around comes around, he must be slowed too—“

Or not. The entire barge shook. Water started rising up around them and the sky flickered between red and blue for a moment. Then, it settled on red and the sun went black, as more water and the boat itself started to rise. Beginning from where the initial craters were from their earlier fight, the entire barge started to split apart. Large chunks rose up and sank around them. The shaking was so intense they both nearly lost their balance.

“What the hell’s going on?!” Clear yelled. The platform they were standing on split off, and Clear gouged the tip of the scythe into the metal to hold on. Dante grabbed a hand railing near him, looking around for Mundus.

A screech from the former king alerted Dante to his location. Above them, some ways off, levitating with one wing spread. As soon as Clear’s head snapped up to look too, Mundus was already diving down to them. He engaged Clear easily, using both legs to kick him in the chest and back into Dante; the shock of it ripped his hands from the scythe, the breath punched out of his lungs. Where Dante caught him, he could feel cratered ribs. Mundus gripped the scythe with his fully formed stone arm and pulled it out of the metal.

Dante cursed to himself. He gathered Clear as best he could, and dove away from Mundus to a nearby platform. The demon followed after him with a mighty bellow, rending the ground with every slash of his scythe. With Clear in tow, Dante couldn’t draw Rebellion; speaking of swords, Clear’s knives… Dante hoped he got those back, where did Minos go...?

Mundus swung at Dante’s back. Dante ducked as best he could, sliding forward. The scythe nicked the shoulder of his jacket, barely slicing skin, and not enough to wound in the slightest, but much to close for comfort. Drawing one of his guns, he whipped around to shoot Mundus cleanly in the cheekbone.

It wasn’t a killing blow. But it was enough to slow Mundus down so Dante could throw himself off the platform to the one below and duck into hiding there. It must have been from inside, since there were stairs; granted, they were flipped upside down, but it was a good hiding spot for him to leave Clear for a moment.

He was far enough from the scythe to start healing. As he sliced his hand on Rebellion, he offered his blood to Clear’s tattoo. When the kid hissed and exhaled tightly, Dante peaked out to see where their enemy was.

Mundus had risen up to float in front of the black sun, like it was a halo behind him. More of Malacoda’s body had been covered by cracked stone. What was peaking through was no longer human, but now covered in grotesque orange muscles, just like Mundus’ original form. His one stone arm was the only thing truly intact, much larger than his current body and with a stone wing growing from the shoulder. Slowly, it seemed his main body was growing to match the arm’s size, but it still wasn’t a very impressive silhouette.

“He must have pulled us into one of his pocket dimensions,” Dante sighed when he ducked his head back into their spot. Clear was staring at him, breathing heavy.

“Is there any way to get back?”

“Not until we kill him.”

Clear didn’t answer. He grunted and shoved himself up so he could hang out over the railing.He scanned the water below them, even though it was covered by a red film that separated where they were now from the world they knew. As his eyes moved farther away he let out a breath. Dante also turned to look at the spot. He could see the dark water underneath, through all of the debris and the swaths of rotting human bodies sans flesh. But sailing away, albeit on a rough wave, was the boat they’d come in on.

“Looks like Dimitri and Beatrice made it out safely. But that leaves you,” Dante said. He wiped his face clean of blood as he spoke, his nose had finally molded back into place, and so had at least his front teeth. He could probably look at Clear now at least.

“What do you mean ‘that leaves me?’ We both got dragged into this.”

“The former demon king just kicked you hard enough to _destroy_ your ribs. You can’t help me in this fight. I need you to stay safe while I deal with him.”

“I don’t… Dante,” Clear almost seemed like he was pleading, but his voice seemed caught in resignation too. Dante had seen helplessness set in before, it wasn’t becoming of Clear. This fiery kid who had never backed down once since they met. The kid who dealt with becoming part demon better than Dante ever had. The kid who was human, and conquered demonic weapons anyway.

“Just stay hidden here. I can’t worry about both of us.” It hurt him to say it.

“I—I know. But I won't be worthless and let you fight him!"

“Don’t put yourself in danger—“

“We have Marabbecca! I’m better at a range anyway, you know that!” Clear protested, making to stand. He was already breathing easier, but he still looked worse for wear. “Just get me to a good vantage point and I can back you up.”

“And if he dives for you?”

“I have Tatzelwurm, and Grendel. You can trust me. I won’t let you down.”

“Are you really sure you want to risk your life for this?”

“What was it I said earlier? About having each other’s backs? Remember that?”

Dante couldn’t help but chuckle. He also stood with a shake of his head, and offered a hand out to Clear.

“Thanks.”

Using Airistotle, Dante pulled them up to a higher platform. It was from Malacoda’s suite, evidenced by the shattered floor to ceiling windows. The two spun into the room, Clear immediately drawing Marabbecca from his back. Instantly, he had an arrow of ice drawn.

“There you are!” Mundus dove at them. Clear fired his shot, nailing the demon in the eye. It barely did anything to scratch him. Dante drew Rebellion and charged out of the window. He and Mundus clashed in midair. Unfortunately, Dante was thrown in the opposite direction from Clear. Mundus still followed him with a snarl.

Mundus’ laughter boomed around them. His body was mostly healed now. There were still cracks where orange muscle showed through, glowing and pulsing like red hot lava. Up close he was definitely larger now, taller than Dante and broader too. His wing loomed above him as he raised his scythe to cleave Dante in two. Clear did his best to follow with shots of ice, most of them shattering against Mundus’ back. Dante leapt out of the way of a slash, grinning when Clear targeted the scythe instead to freeze it into the ground. It wasn’t a huge distraction, but it was enough that Dante could get a slash in at Mundus’ arm.

Mundus bellowed, swinging his other arm out. Dante ducked under it only to have the staff of the scythe slam into his chest and send him flying. He cratered metal where he hit it, only barely registering Clear’s yell. 

_Fuck_ , that was close. Dante barely managed to dive out of the way to another platform before Mundus stabbed at his previous spot with the scythe. Clear was still firing blasts of ice at his back, some of his shots blowing feathers off Mundus’ wing. The demon king didn’t even seem phased by it; an annoyed growl echoed the dimension.

“Pesky little worm. Accept your death!”

Mundus threw his hand towards Clear’s direction, sending five beams of light at the destroyed suite. Dante watched Clear scramble away from them. The kid managed to gain enough momentum to throw himself to another nearby platform, landing hard in a roll with a yell. He crouched and fired back a few shots fruitlessly.

Using the distraction, Dante leapt up at Mundus and slashed at his back with Rebellion. Sparks flew where his sword chipped stone but didn’t cut cleanly through. He barely did any damage, only ripping a small gash in his back from another repeated slash. It exposed burning orange muscle, which Dante would have taken a shot at, if the demon king didn’t flex his wing back to toss him off. Dante was thrown back to his former platform, easily stopping his slide by stabbing Rebellion into the ground. He was about to dive in again when Mundus raised his hand again, this time surrounding himself in balls of fire.

Wordlessly Mundus threw them forward. What platforms they hit disintegrated, trapping Clear on the small one he’d landed on. With no where around him to dodge to, he was free pickings for Mundus to kill. The demon king’s laugh echoed again, shaking the entire dimension.

Mundus made to dive at Clear. Clear fired again, freezing almost all the way up the scythe and onto Mundus’ arm. Dante had a split second to extend Airistotle to him and pull him away. Once Clear grabbed on and Airistotle started pulling back, Dante dove from his spot to meet Clear halfway. Clear let Airistotle go just above a much larger, more stable platform that must have been part of the bow of the ship, but he stumbled over his own legs as he landed and barely managed to roll to a stop. Dante skid down next to him, observing the damage.

Broken ankle, surrounded by Regalia to hold it steady. Must have happened when he landed earlier. Fuck, he wished he could just send the kid home. What would he tell Dimitri if he died? Mundus had freed his weapon now and floated down to them, bright white eyes staring down impassively.

“What do we do…?” Clear grit out. He had Marabbecca drawn, but his hands were shaky.

“You just keep shooting him, always aim for the scythe when it's in the ground,” Dante answered. He had Rebellion in one hand and Airistotle in the other. All he had to do was get behind Mundus so he could stab at the exposed muscles at his back. Then it would be over.

“Wait, Dante.” Clear dropped the bow, reaching back to pull Grendel from his back. He offered the blade up to Dante by the hilt. Dante returned Airistotle to his back and took the sword; it thrummed in his hands, hungry.

“You’ll use it better than I will," Clear said. Mundus had freed himself and was readying another group of beams to fire in their direction. He'd divebomb them again right after, Dante knew it. At least this platform was wide and flat, he could run—

The beams shot forward. Dante swung Grendel, devouring one of the beams. With Rebellion he spun in front of Clear and deflected two, the other two missing their position, then commanded Grendel to shoot the first beam right back. Mundus sliced through it with a spin of his scythe. He raised his hand and fired another set of five. This time Clear shot down two of them over Dante's shoulder, though the last arrow missed. Dante deflected the three shots again with both swords, each one pushing him back.

This time, Mundus did fly down to meet them head-on. Clear switched Marabbecca to her crossbow form, pelting the demon king with ice. Mundus avoided most of them with a graceful twirl in the air, aiming straight for Dante for a slash. Dante greeted him with equal strength, swinging Rebellion up to knock the scythe away. Then, with Grendel, he aimed to bite off Mundus' wing. Mundus raised his arm to block, the sword gnawing down on stone but not breaking all the way through. It chipped but that was about it; Mundus chuckled. 

"So noble, protecting your little pet. Just like your father." 

Mundus swung his arm out, knocking Dante away. Then, he advanced towards Clear, scythe raised. Clear, to his credit, had a very steady aim even when he was scrambling back on one good leg and one free arm; even so, Mundus barely slowed when ice erupted at his feet to freeze him in place. His sheer size was enough to aid him in breaking through with each step. He brought Mundus Cereris down. 

Dante zipped over to Clear with Trickster Style. Even with his momentum Dante couldn’t move fast enough while grabbing him. The scythe came down _hard_ across Dante's shoulders, cutting into his skin down to the bone. Intense pain he’d never felt before bloomed across his back. His muscles seized and he knew he screamed, but he could barely focus on that when Mundus blasted his back with another burst of flames. Those didn’t hurt as much—between the dizzying pain of having his back sliced open and rolling across the floor after being thrown forward, he couldn’t focus on anything. Was he still rolling? Was he falling? He couldn't tell. 

“Dante! Dante!!”

He blinked. Barely a second must have passed. Dante came to to Clear calling to him. His hand was clasped tight around the front of Dante’s jacket collar. The other was holding the staff of Airistotle where he’d stabbed it into the edge of a platform. It seemed they'd fallen quite a bit. Blood slicked where Clear held him. His voice broke on every plead.

“Come on, hold on, hold on, please—“

Dante couldn’t find his voice for a moment, coughing instead. He reached up to grip Clear’s wrist. Clear’s head snapped to him. His eyes were wide, fearful, helpless. The world around them shook. Clear’s hand on Airistotle slipped. He yelled again. Everything was so in and out of focus. Where was Mundus? And where was the sea? All Dante could make out was the endless expanse of space. A new universe…? So that meant…

“I’m slipping!” Clear yelled. Dante hacked blood from his mouth and spit off to his side somewhere.

“Drop me,” he rasped, barely audible above the rumbling. 

“What!” Clear snarled down at him. “There’s no way you’ll survive the fall!”

The world tremored again. Clear yelped above Dante and though he was holding with all his might his strength was slipping; Dante could feel the way his grip around his collar was starting to weaken. They jerked with another intense quake making Clear’s bloodied grip on the spear slip down the staff a little more. Though the blade was firmly lodged in the roof it was obvious it would be stuck there longer than they would. But he was healing, he could feel the wound across his back closing up. 

“Trust me!” Dante called over Clear’s grunting.

“You’re gonna fucking die!”

A rough laugh. “You’re getting better at making jokes!”

“I’m not joking!”

“Since when is a little fall enough to kill me?” Dante shrugged as much as he could, and let go of Clear’s wrist. Clear grunted and gripped him harder, practically tearing through the fabric of Dante’s jacket into his vest. The blood on his hands was soaking the garment and making it slip no matter how hard he held on.

“Clear," Dante called up gently. "Let me go.”

Clear bared his teeth, in an almost-snarl, but cursed weakly instead. “If you don’t become a pancake somehow, I’m gonna personally turn you into one for this—!”

Dante just laughed. Clear let him go.

Clear snapped his hand back and gripped Airistotle with both hands. He readjusted and started inching towards the side of the platform to swing himself up to more stable ground. But with all of Dante's blood on his hands, he was having a hard time finding the grip he needed. Another tremor rocked the platform, but this one felt different. Pure demonic energy, more powerful than he'd ever felt before, rushed up from below him; he barely had time to register what caused it when his wet fingers slipped. Hanging by one hand, he wasn’t fast enough to reach back up; his hands slid off the spear. Clear yelled a curse, reaching out for the weapon futilely.

He barely fell a few meters before something hard gripped his waist. His momentum threw him forward at the waist so he managed to knee himself in the forehead—the headache it immediately caused was enough to make him ignore the need to throw up from the sudden impact to his middle. Coughing, he looked up to see what had grabbed him, expecting to find Mundus, but when a different red-eyed demon met him with a smirk he could only feel relief. Even his tattoo seemed to vibrate in agreement.

“Piece of shit…” Clear grunted out. He didn’t put up a struggle while Dante flew them to a safer chunk of rock, even as he was let down so he could kneel in a way that didn't disturb his ankle too much. Any sign of Dante's wound from earlier had disappeared, thankfully, though there was a thick line of fresh scales where he had taken damage.

“How did you heal…?”

“It’s proximity based, I realized earlier. Just had to let myself fall far enough that the effect weakened,” Dante said with a grin. His expression quickly became serious again.

“With that broken ankle you won't be much help. Just stay here, out of sight as much as you can—“

Dante was cut off by Mundus landing in front of them. He was much larger now, almost twice Dante's size. Dante had Rebellion and Grendel out, too fast for Clear to see him move, but he followed suit and drew Marabbecca. She shifted into her full bow form, arrow already drawn, but Dante was right; if he couldn't move, he couldn't be much more than a hindrance. 

"I should have guessed you'd find a way to survive that. This time I'll cleave you clean in two." Mundus pointed the scythe at them. 

"More talkative than last time, or is that Malacoda's influence?" Dante sneered. Clear growled his name in anxious warning. 

"I have  _nothing_ influencing me," Mundus said in a threatening rumble, mirrored by the world around them. Dante raised both swords. Then, he engaged with a fierce stinger attack. 

Mundus swung the scythe towards Dante, only to have it deflected. Digging Grendel into the ground, he allowed it to eat rubble there so his next hit had more strength. His hit didn't dent Mundus' rocky exterior, but the sheer power still buckled his knee. Clear followed up when Dante dove out of the way of another slice, firing three shots up Mundus' leg that froze his foot in place.

Dante danced around Mundus, noting how the demon king kept his wing curled at his back. If he could just get the wing out of the way... He swung out with Rebellion, coming down in a vertical slash from the air. His blade sparked against Mundus' stone skin, but didn' cut through the wing in the slightest. Mundus reared on him, scythe raised overhead, and brought it down. Dante zipped out of the way with Trickster. Mundus gave chase, shattering the ice at his leg to follow. He was faster on the ground than Dante had given him credit for, resorting to Royal Guard to defend himself from the next incoming strike. 

He easily parried, and spun out of the way of Mundus' next swing. They danced along the platform, swords versus scythe. Every time Mundus gouged up the ground, Dante commanded Grendel to eat the rubble. Every empowered strike he landed staggered Mundus. Clear stayed back, providing cover fire that splintered into ice crystals with every impact along Mundus' back. One shot landed at the base of his wing. Dante leapt up over a swing, using the staff of Mundus' weapon as a springboard to flip over him. He thrust Rebellion outward and jabbed at the ice, finally shattering through stone. It still wasn't enough to separate the wing from the body. Mundus flexed his wing out again, throwing Dante back.

"Enough!" the king bellowed. The world tremored again, the red around them getting darker as if to reflect Mundus' foul mood. He fired off a quick set of three white beams at Clear, then charged at Dante with his scythe raised. Dante easily dodged away from the swing, only realizing his mistake when Mundus' free hand reached for him. The hand closed around his neck, slamming him first into the wall, then swinging him like a ragdoll into one of Clear's shots. The ice splintered from his shoulder—not the worst wound—but Clear still yelled. 

Mundus advanced at Clear again, seemingly intent on finishing him off this time. The kid stopped firing, knowing that Mundus would use Dante as a human shield. Even with both swords in his hands, with one shoulder frozen and the other arm nearly pinned to his side by Mundus' massive hand he couldn't move. The next best thing he could do was flail his wings, but even that didn't loosen Mundus' hold on him. 

As the king got closer, he raised his scythe. Dante saw something flash in Clear's eyes, something wild. Daring. A gamble. He raised Marabbecca up and fired, just as Mundus brought the scythe down. The arrow embedded itself into Mundus' glowing white eye and splintered out of the socket. It didn't matter. Clear still screamed. 

* * *

 

It had been a gamble, a risky one. He thought maybe if he fired at something vital at close range, Mundus would move Dante to block it and hold off swinging. From there he could have figured something out. Apparently a shot to the head hadn't been lethal enough to stop Mundus from attacking him. The scythe cut clean down his left side, through bone and muscle and anything else there. Blood filled his lung, making him splutter on his scream. He dropped Marabbecca, the pain so intense he could only clench his eyes shut and hope for a quicker death. His awareness faded out, he was just so close to blacking out, but the spikes of agony shooting from his side were keeping him awake. Dante was yelling, maybe, Mundus was laughing, the world shook around him. 

 _'Oh, this... is_ perfect,' another voice chimed in his head. He recognized it as his tattoo's. What the fuck did that mean? It wanted him to die? 

 _'_ _Thanks for the meal!’_

Clear couldn’t tell if Parasite had yelled just in his mind or out loud with his own voice. Did it really matter? He was moving but not on his own. His uninjured hand reached up to grip Mundus Cereris and hold it still in the wound. Then, like the first time his wing ripped it’s way out of his back, pain blossomed in his shoulder. This time however, his entire chest went _numb_ , and instead of a wing, teeth, then a full crocodile's muzzle, tore from the fresh wound. 

He recognized it as Grendel’s snout. How long had it been since he’d—he’d taken the giant’s blood more than two years ago, so Parasite had been saving it since then?! He was even more shellshocked when the maw opened and then bit down on not just Mundus’ arm and wing, but the scythe as well. Clear expected himself to be ripped apart from the inside-out when the snout vanished back into his body. Instead, it stitched his wound back together. So many sensations shot through him at once; relief, pain, numbness, cramping, his bones resetting like nothing had ever happened. 

He could feel new ink engraving itself into his skin over the scar. His chest was still numb and that was lessening the pain he felt, but it was still sharp enough to make him yelp. Gripping at his shoulder with his free arm, he was surprised to find bone there, sticking out. 

No. It wasn't bone. Not extending like that. Clear reached his hand up, further. Gripped it. Pulled. 

The bone pulled free, followed by a blade. The pain left his body, but he felt like he was falling backwards into a pool of water. Not drowning, just... at a loss of all his senses. He felt his body move to stand. Hear Dante say something to him. Saw the shock in Mundus' body language as he pulled back just out of range. But all of it was dull and muted. 

A hand grabbed his shoulder. Pushed him deeper into the void. 

 _'I'm borrowing you for a moment. Rest up!'_ Parasite muttered in his ear. The numbness set in. Resting seemed like a good idea. All Clear could do was let himself float through the distant sensations of someone else controlling his body.

* * *

 

Dante would have taken advantage of the situation if he wasn't so stunned. Clear never ceased to amaze him. But devouring not only part of Mundus' body, but Mundus Cereris with it? He couldn't believe it even though he watched it happened. 

Mundus jumped back with a yowl. He swung his hand back and threw Dante  _hard_ at Clear, who hadn't even managed to stand up yet. Dante tried to spread his wings out and stop his impact, but the best it did was slow him down. He crashed into Clear who slid back with him slightly, getting crushed between a half-standing wall and Dante's weight. 

"Fuck—kid, wake up!" 

"Oh, I'm fine." 

The voice that came from his throat was Clear's, and yet not his. It was overlayed with two or three voices Dante could barely pick out. One was female, one was deep and menacing. One, softer, was... his own. Hearing his own voice out of Clear's mouth was too jarring. 

Clear easily pushed them both up, raising the new weapon in his hands. It was still a scythe, but the blade looked different. More batwing-like, tipped with feathers towards the neck and held together by bone. The tang was made of what looked like a ribcage, leading down into a spine that lead to the curved staff. It was entirely purple and white in color, the wing-shaped blade sprawled with red and orange alchemic and demonic tattoos.

Dante still felt like it was draining his energy. When he could see Clear's eyes again, he could tell that something was off in them. They were wilder. He was grinning too. Whatever had come back wasn't Clear. What he and Trish had mentioned in the shop before came back to him. Curse Trigger. Parasite. What came out must have been Clear's demon. 

"You were aiming for he back right? I'll keep him distracted," Clear muttered. Dante snapped back into motion with a nod, he could figure all of this shit out later. What mattered was that Mundus didn't have the scythe anymore, and that the battle had turned in their favor. 

Mundus thrust his only hand out. Orbs of fire swirled around his shoulders and then flew at them. Clear sliced through all three with an easy flourish of his scythe, slinging it over his shoulder to charge forward. Dante followed; Clear's demon was much more reckless, a little like him. Mundus aimed to stomp at Clear, only for the kid to spin under his foot and slash at the back of his ankle. Dante jumped up over a grab, using both blades to slash at Mundus' arm. Where Grendel had chipped the rock last time easily shattered under his onslaught to expose more pulsing orange muscle. Dante beat his wings, throwing himself high into the air just as Clear sliced through Mundus' calves and knees, crippling him. As he fell, Dante brought Rebellion down to stab through the previously exposed muscle a his back. 

Mundus shrieked, back arching. He tried to reach back to claw at Dante but he wouldn't have it, using Grendle to gnash through his forearm where stone had chipped away. Clear was cackling at the pitiful display, rounding on Mundus while Dante held Rebellion steady. 

"Some king you are! Accept your death, pathetic worm!" Clear parroted Mundus' earlier words. He planted his feet and swung with Mundus Cereris, catching the king just under the jaw. The tip of the blade narrowly missed Dante's nose as it cut clean through the stone and muscle of Mundus' neck. The Demon King's body gave one final thrash, then fell limp to the ground in a motionless heap while his stone head rolled off somewhere behind Clear. 

Dante withdrew Rebellion, his Devil Trigger fading. Clear spun Mundus Cereris around his body, finally letting it stab into his back on the third rotation. However, instead of blood like Dante expected, the scythe curled cleanly into his back with a puff of demonic energy. Then, Clear's wings extended out; two on his left side, the bottom wing the same as before, looking like Dante's, but the top looking very different. Now, it seemed like it was covered in scaly feathers, taking on a similar angelic appearance to Mundus'. 

The wings finally furled into Clear's back. When he opened his eyes, he regarded Dante cooly. Dante was caught between feeling non-threatened and overly cautious. 

The red of Mundus' pocket dimension was fading to blue around them as the remains of the ship began to fall back to the water. As the sun faded back to yellow, the bright midday light blinded Dante for a second. When his eyes readjusted, Clear was smirking dangerously at him.

"He's not ready for all of me yet. Keep an eye on 'im till then, got it?"

Without waiting for an answer, that dangerous look was gone. Clear's entire face relaxed and his body went limp, falling into Dante's arms. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so tired. I rewrote some parts of this chapter four times deadass and I'm still not 100% happy with it but I just want to be done with this chapter ple as e I'll come back to edit this later I'm so sorry. 
> 
> Someone outside: You can pinpoint the exact moment the author lost it.


	21. Epilogue: After-Credits

Gliding back to shore had been a walk in the park. It had been a while since he’d stretched his wings, and he was glad that Clear was easy to carry. He couldn’t wait to tease the kid endlessly, this was what, the third time he’d done this?

As he landed easily on the beach, he saw Dimitri laying asleep in the sand next to a faded alchemy circle he’d drawn in it. In the center of the circle was the body of a small white demon, that looked almost like a marionette. He recognized her sent as soon as the wind carried it to him; she was the broker, Beatrice. But there was something off in it, another smell he didn’t recognize. As he stepped closer to the alchemist, Trish and Lady pulled up at the street.

They wasted no time coming down to him. At least Clear had brought Dimitri’s van when they’d left, it was going to be a long ride home.

* * *

 

Vision started to blur into existence. Not having physical eyelids to blink made adjusting to sight an interesting task, as color faded back into view and she was able to see again. Bea’s eyes adjusted slowly to the lack of light, and then as her vision came into focus, Adrian’s relieved face over her. He smiled down at her—a smile? Was she dreaming, he never smiled—and opened his mouth to speak. But as he did, all of the memories from Malacoda’s ship came rushing back to her and she shot up from where she’d been laying.

Their foreheads collided hard enough to knock Adrian back. He grumbled at her. She shook her head and shut him up by grabbing his face with a hand made of light particles and pulling him close.

“Are you alive right now? Did you get shot? Dante didn’t kill you right?”

“Wh—no, Bea, I’m okay—“

“And him? You didn’t kill him?”

“No! I couldn’t do that—Bea, holy shit, what’s gotten into you?”

“I could kiss you. I was so worried you killed each other and it was _my fault_ and that—“ She choked up. Even as tired as she was, she cast her illusion around her main body so she had a human form again, one that she could use to pull him into a tight hug. She squeezed him so tightly he had to suck in a deep breath when she finally let him go. Still holding his shoulders, she surveyed him for damage.

“You broke your ankle! I can’t believe I made you two fight, look at this, a broken ankle… at least it’s just that… I’m so sorry I let this happen, I always knew Minos was trouble and I should have kept a better eye out and—“

“Bea. Shut the fuck up. You’re rambling,” Clear commanded, but his voice was only stern and held little bite. He hesitantly put a hand against her cheek and gave her a little pat.

“I don’t get a word you’re saying. But I’m _fine._ And so is Dante, and D if you were wondering.”

“I’m so glad…” Bea breathed, leaning into his hand. She gave a mild laugh, wiping at her eyes with her palms. He let her go too but didn’t move from his spot.

“I was the one who cast that illusion. When I sent you those images of what was happening at Strand, Minos had me under his control. At first he just got me out of pure shock, but then I managed to break his spell just enough to get free. He’d already made me use my powers to make you see your friend’s death, so you would kill Dante for him… I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” another voice piped up. Clear turned to the other boy present as he stepped up to the bed. Warm honey eyes crinkled up in a smile. He was so… non-threatening.

“Everything turned out fine in the end. Instead of apologizing, you can thank me for saving you.”

“For… saving?” Bea paused to process what he said. Right, her insides had been completely destroyed by Mundus’ powers. When she touched her side, even through her human form, she felt… thinner, somehow, and that part of her interior was missing. Her core hadn’t been touched, and her illusion didn’t have a scar on it. But her main body…

For a moment she let her illusion disappear again to give herself a onceover. Sure enough, at her right side where she’d been damaged, was a grey scar in the shape of an alchemic circle. Much of her body there didn’t look like her own, instead being a too-dark red color that stood out on her alabaster skin. 

“It was a quick fix,” Clear’s friend said, sheepish. “There was one dead demon on the boat with us. It was all I had to patch you up.”

“It’s… fine,” Bea whispered. She returned to her human illusion, still looking at her side.

“You healed me?”

“As best I could. I didn’t recreate anything, I just readjusted organs and patched wounds. There was something brightly glowing inside you, I tried not to touch it so I think I just covered the wound enough that you’d heal okay and stop bleeding out.”

“That’s so impressive,” she said. “It’s pretty rare for demons to heal. I’ve never even heard of humans being able to heal wounded demons, especially like this…”

“No, please, keep the praise coming,” Clear said, pulling his friend close with an arm around his shoulders. His voice was proud when he said, “He deserves it.”

“And a thank you, right?” Bea smiled up at them. The friend giggled behind his hand and nodded.

"I owe you two so much. I can't believe I'd be dead right now if it wasn't for you. Thank you," Bea said, quiet and honest. She reached out to pinch at Dimitri's cheek, earning another small, almost embarrassed giggle. 

"How long have I been asleep? I bet the gossip's just piled up down in the Underworld. Hey, how about this, I'll give you your next few tips half-off!" 

"That's hardly fair. Even Dimitri gives better deals than that," Clear teased with a shake of his head. He still hand't let Dimitri go. They both backed up when she hopped off the bed with a little twirl. 

"Fine! Next time you see me, I'll..." Bea pursed her lips, then put a finger up. "I'll think about it!"

"I  _think_ you owe us a lot more than that. Arms Race is hiring. Just stay here and work for us," Clear said instead. Bea's mouth dropped open, and Dimitri looked up at Clear, a grin splitting his face. 

"You're offering to hire someone? I thought I was the boss!" Dimitri teased, elbowing his side. Clear shrugged out of it, grumbling. 

"I can be hiring manager. Besides, it's helpful to have a broker around." 

As the two bickered, Bea found herself smiling. Being asked to stay left a nice fluttery feeling in her chest. 

* * *

 

Fucking humans. All of them. Disgusting. Rubbish. An infestation to be exterminated. Minos spit again, cursing at the poison still burning on his tongue, in his chest, in his lungs.

The boy had a good eye on him, but not a perfect one. If the knife had been any closer to the center of Minos’ chest it absolutely would have killed him. His core, his _heart_ , wouldn’t still be beating. He thanked luck for that. But he should never have expected a human to hesitate in the face of danger. They never did.

They always acted foolishly. Recklessly. But damn the kings if demons hadn’t been doing that as of late too. Sparda’s influence ran deep it seemed. It had even corrupted their great Lord Mundus.

Some lord. He was dead now, finally. Minos laughed to himself, he could curse that name all he wanted and never be smited for it. How the mighty fell, bowing to the whims and demands of a human to achieve his goal of killing one pathetic child. No… not a pathetic child, not anymore. The Son of Sparda was someone to be taken very seriously.

Minos spit again. The underworld needed a new king. And he knew just who to grovel at. Argosax had been Mundus’ rival for thousands of years. With Mundus finally destroyed, it was Argosax’s rightful turn at the throne of the Underworld. Berial, along with many of Mundus’ other children, had probably switched to his side as well. At least some brains ran in the family.

Minos only hoped that his powers could persuade Argosax to take him. Every king needed a right hand. And every good mastermind needed a figurehead. But first, he'd have to seem appealing. Mind control of demons aside, he knew just what kind of information about Dante Sparda Argosax would want. The little princess had been more than forthcoming in the information he'd demanded of her. It was unfortunate she probably perished at her father's own hand... well, one less spawn of Mundus to have to deal with. 

He chuckled to himself. The gates of Argosax's castle was just in sight. Soon, he would be rid of this damn Tatzelwurm poison. And soon, he would be, as Malacoda once said, 'back in business.' 

* * *

 

“I wanted to say thanks. For everything you did.”

They were standing outside of Arms Race, Clear in a new grey duster after his old jacket had been utterly ruined during the fight. His body was still sore in multiple places, new ink over a new scar under his clothes, and he still had yet to entirely figure out what had happened after he'd nearly lost an arm and passed out, but he could bother Dante later. Right now he just wanted to focus on being alive. 

“Hey, don’t sweat it. Feels nice to have someone in _my_ debt for once," Dante chuckled. 

“We never agreed to a payment for this job, did we.”

“It was a lifetime investment.”

Clear barked a laugh at that. The cast around his ankle was annoying, but he was glad it would be off in a few weeks. 

They fell silent. Clear let them sit in it for a moment before he piped up again. 

"Hey. I know we started off rocky, but a lot happened since we first met. So, I was wondering...?" 

Dante eyed him with those icy blue eyes. They used to be so menacing to Clear, back when they'd first met and he'd thought Dante was just some demon in a disguise. They'd come so far now. It was strange, they'd barely met a month ago and yet Clear felt—no,  _knew—_ that he could trust Dante with his life. And he'd do the same if Dante was ever in danger again. 

"You were wondering?" 

“Maybe if you wanted to continue being partners?”

“Sure,” Dante said, brushing past Clear to start walking off.

“Hey, that’s barely an answer. Where’re you off to?”

“Got a job earlier today, I was actually off to it before I stopped by. I know you have a broken ankle, but you and Marabbecca can still keep me company.” He threw his hand up in a two finger salute over his head and didn’t stop walking. Still, he cast a sly glance over his opposite shoulder.

“You comin’, partner?”

Clear grinned to himself, noting that Dante was walking slower so he could catch up. He hobbled after Dante as best he could, matching his pace so they could walk shoulder to shoulder.

“Do you even have to ask?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it!! Can you believe in all my time writing, this is the first multichapter fic since 2016 I've finished?? We out here in 2020 y'all lol 
> 
> I had so much fun writing this—and don't think I'm gonna stop any time soon! I have so much more planned for Clear, D, and Beatrice interacting with the rest of the cast. I know what I'm working on next, so I hope you'll stick around to see him and his friends grow together. 
> 
> Moving forward, I'll probably go back and do another pass on this just to fully flesh out some details and make a couple things more clear. Now that I have a very very very concrete idea of what Parasite does and how it acts, it'll be easier for me to write moving forward! The next part of this series is going to be centered around Dimitri and Parasite itself, actually, so I hope you'll all read that if you enjoyed this fic ^^ 
> 
> Final stats on this story:  
> Planning/development began - around November 20, 2018  
> Published - 6/25/2019  
> Completed - 2/23/2020 (I'm 22 now!)  
> Total words - 70031  
> Total pages - about 115  
> Average chapter length - 3343 words  
> Longest chapter (not counting epilogue or chap 1) - Chapter 20, 5549 words  
> Runner up - Chapter 13, 5316 words  
> Shortest chapter (not counting epilogue or chap 1) - Chapter 2, 2011  
> Runner up - Chapter 15, 2299 words
> 
> Thank you everyone for reading, leaving comments, leaving kudos, and checking this wholly self-indulgent fic out!! I hope you had as much fun with it as I did, and I hope you'll continue to follow this series if you enjoyed this fic!! The next bit might take a little to get to, since I have Nero's entire arc planned out but literally decided as of last chapter to add Dimitri's part first, but it shouldn't be too long. Thank you in advance for being patient with me! I hope to see you again soon!
> 
> — Wes (and all of Arms Race!)


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